Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination
Source: Washington Post
Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.
Obama administration officials emphasized that the United States is neither supplying nor funding the lethal material, which includes antitank weaponry. Instead, they said, the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.
We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond in order to have the biggest impact on what we are collectively doing, said a senior State Department official, one of several U.S. and foreign government officials who discussed the evolving effort on the condition of anonymity.
The U.S. contacts with the rebel military and the information-sharing with gulf nations mark a shift in Obama administration policy as hopes dim for a political solution to the Syrian crisis. Many officials now consider an expanding military confrontation to be inevitable.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-rebels-get-influx-of-arms-with-gulf-neighbors-money-us-coordination/2012/05/15/gIQAds2TSU_story.html
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)I'm not a fan at all of the Syrian regime, but we need to have our eyes open and be honest about the violence in Syria.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)By "more and better weapons" for the Syrian opposition, we can take that to mean bigger suicide bombs. This is going to blow up in our faces, again.
They learned nothing from 9/11, except how to leverage terrorism into intervention.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)Also see http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014122036
President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who obstructs implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.
International law? Meh ...
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Deja Vu 2
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Messier than Libya and messier than Syria up to now.
This could end up as a full-scale sectarian civil war, with powerful outside interests on both sides fighting their proxy wars. Just the kind of shit we don't need to get ourselves sucked into.