President George W. Bush's government is concerned that the missiles, easy to use and transport, could fall into the hands of terrorists.

"We do have a team down there of State Department and Pentagon officials working on the issue of Man-Portable Air Defense Systems. This has been a longstanding issue, one that we have worked productively with the Nicaraguan government on," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

He said the team, led by Rose Likins, the acting assistant secretary for political and military affairs, was now in Managua.

"They are in Managua now to renew contact with Nicaraguan officials on the matter.

"President Bolanos of Nicaragua assured President Bush and former Secretary of State Powell in 2003 that Nicaragua would destroy all of its man-portable missiles in order to reduce the chance that they might fall into the hands of criminals and terrorists. Since then, the government of Nicaragua has destroyed some of these systems with US assistance," the spokesman added.

"So the purpose of this visit is to review progress in light of the recent sting operation by the Nicaraguan government, in which they recovered an SA-7, as well as a recent national assembly vote which would require that body's approval for any further MANPADS destruction. It remains our goal to ensure that further MANPADS cooperation remains on track and that we do work with the government of Nicaragua as it tries to fulfill its pledge."

"We've been satisfied with some of the efforts the Nicaraguan government has made to destroy missiles, the sting operation that helped identify that there might be others out there. But obviously the national assembly vote creates difficulties, and that's one of the reasons why we want to get a team down there to try to work with them, to help make sure the government can fulfill the pledge that it made at very high levels," Boucher stressed.

"The reason we want to see these missiles destroyed and taken off the streets everywhere is so that they do not fall into the hands of criminals and terrorists. They are dangerous, and where countries don't need them, we think they should be destroyed," he said.

The SA-7s were purchased by the Nicaraguan Sandinista government between 1979-1990 to battle the US-backed contras.

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