TEHRAN Reports said on Wednesday that numbers of computers and firearms have been missing in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

*** Star Malaysia **** said in a report that a total of 184 laptops and 450 firearms have been missing in FBI, while *** Washington Post **** quoted FBI sources as saying that hundreds of firearms as well as a laptop containing classified information were missing.

All of the reports including those dispatches by Reuters and AFP acknowledged that the laptop contained classified information, but the FBI itself refused any comment on the matter.

However, AFP said in its report that justice officials had admitted that at least one laptop computer containing classified information as well as an unidentified number of firearms have been missing in the FBI.

"One of the laptop computers at the FBI did contain classified information," Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker told AFP on Tuesday. "There could be others."

However, she refused to say whether the information stored in the classified laptop pertained to the FBI's counterintelligence activities or disclose the number of missing weapons at the agency.

According to CBS News, a total of 184 laptops were missing at the agency and 13 were believed to be stolen. The number of missing weapons was as high as 449.

In addition, 539 missing weapons have been discovered at the immigration and naturalization service, the officials said.

FBI officials are trying to relate the story with the arrest of the a former top-level FBI counterintelligence executive Robert Hanssen for espionage charges, but it is believed that Hanssen had not been involved in the case

A, Hanssen has admitted to spying for the Soviet Union and then Russia since 1979, a period in which he disclosed the names of valuable Russian agents a compromised a series of U.S. counterintelligence operations.