GENEVA, June 30: Airlines could face growing danger from attackers armed with new shoulder-launched missiles unless states make a major effort to control their spread, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

The report, from a Geneva University-based team, said at least 13 "non-state armed groups...some considered terrorist organizations" are known to possess the weapons, known as MANPADS, and at least 14 more may have them.

"Crucially, only a very small number of non-state groups demonstrate an interest in using MANPADS against civilian aircraft," it said. However, "the threat to civilian airliners has the potential to affect the citizens of all states travelling on major air routes," the annual "Small Arms Survey" from the Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI) reported.

It said MANPADS - or man-portable air defence systems - are proliferating "and recent models are sophisticated enough to defeat many counter-measures". About 100 countries have the weapons, Keith Krause, director of the HEI programme, told a news conference, "and many of these do not have high standards of control and supervision".

He said there were around 100,000 full MANPADS systems in existence. MANPADS had been around since the mid-1970s, said Krause. "So far, most attacks have been against military targets like helicopters. But a weapon that can shoot down a helicopter can shoot down a civilian plane too," he added.

In the late 1970s, insurgents fighting white rule in what was then Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, hit civil aircraft with MANPADS. In December 2002, two were fired at an Israeli passenger jet flying out of Mombasa, Kenya.

Using MANPADS required considerable training, Krause said. "You cannot just do it by reading the instructions manual." Equipping airline fleets with deflection systems even for older-type MANPADS - like the "Stingers" supplied in the 1980s by Western countries to Afghan insurgents fighting Soviet occupation forces - would be very costly, the report said. -Reuters