Washington: Praising Russia's role in the arrest of an arms dealer allegedly trying to smuggle surface-to- air missiles into the US, Secretary of State Colin Powell said it was "very important" and "very significant" because Washington and Moscow worked together to stop this kind of traffic in arms.

"The arrests that took place yesterday (August 13) were very significant because the US and the Russian Federation worked together to stop this kind of traffic in arms," Powell said.

"Small arms, surface-to-air missiles – all of these in the hands of terrorists put us all at risk. And to think that there would be people in this world that would traffic in surface-to-air missiles that would go up in the sky and hit an innocent plane full of innocent people as an act of terror is disgraceful to contemplate but there are such people," he told a Spanish language TV network.

"And that is why the world must work together. All of us have a part to play in this campaign against terrorism and I am pleased that this time it worked and we caught them."

Asked whether the US and the world will have complete victory over terrorism some day, Powell said, "I don't know if we will have a complete victory, but I think we are making progress and we will be making more progress in the months and years ahead.

"You see the Saudis are now cracking down. The Russians have their own terrorist problem in Chechnya, which has now come into Moscow, so people are being bombed in Moscow."

PTI