Officials: Arms Shipments Rise to Syrian Rebels
By AP / Dale Gavlak And Jamal HalabyMarch 27, 20131 Comment
http://world.time.com/2013/03/27/officials-arms-shipments-rise-to-syrian-rebels/
(AMMAN, Jordan) - Mideast powers opposed to President Bashar Assad have
dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination
with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the capital of Damascus,
officials and Western military experts said Wednesday.
A carefully prepared covert operation is arming rebels, involving Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, with the United States and other Western
governments consulting, and all parties hold veto power over where the
shipments are directed, according to a senior Arab official whose government
is participating. His account was corroborated by a diplomat and two
military experts.
The Arab official said the number of arms airlifts has doubled in the past
four weeks. He did not provide exact figures on the flights or the size of
the cargo. Jordan opened up as a new route for the weapons late last year,
amid U.S. worries that arms from Turkey were going to Islamic militants, all
four told The Associated Press in separate interviews. Jordan denies helping
funnel weapons to the rebels.
The two military experts, who closely follow the traffic, said the weapons
include more powerful, Croatian-made anti-tank guns and rockets than the
rebels have had before.
The Arab official said there was a "master plan" for the rebels to seize
Damascus. He and the diplomat spoke to the AP on condition that their
identities and their nationalities not be disclosed because the operation
was covert.
(MORE: Optimism in U.N. Over 1st Global Arms Trade Treaty)
"The idea is that the rebels now have the necessary means to advance from
different fronts - north from Turkey and south from Jordan - to close in on
Damascus to unseat Assad," the Arab official said. He declined to provide
details, but said the plan is being prepared in stages and will take "days
or weeks" for results.
Rebels have captured suburbs around Damascus but have been largely unable to
break into the heavily guarded capital. Instead, they have hit central
neighborhoods of the city with increasingly heavy mortar volleys from their
positions to the northeast and south.
But rebels in the south are fighting to secure supply lines from the border
with Jordan to the capital, and the new influx of weapons from Jordan has
fueled the drive, a rebel commander in a southwestern suburb of the capital
said. The consensus among the multiple rebel groups was that Damascus is the
next objective, he added.
"There is an attempt to secure towns and villages along the international
line linking Amman and Damascus. Significant progress is being made. The new
weapons come in that context," said the commander, who spoke on condition of
anonymity for fear of Syrian government reprisal. He said his own fighters
on the capital's outskirts had not received any arms from the influx but
that he had heard about the new weapons from comrades in the south.
Syria's rebels, who are divided into numerous independent brigades, have
long complained that the international community is not providing them with
the weaponry needed to oust Assad, drawing out a civil war that in the past
two years has killed more than 70,000 people and displaced 3.5 million
Syrians, nearly a third of them fleeing into neighboring countries.
But the United States in particular has been wary of arming the rebellion,
fearing weapons will go to Islamic extremists who have taken a prominent
role in the uprising. Washington says it is only providing non-lethal aid to
the rebels. The U.S. involvement in the arms channels opened up by its
regional allies is aimed at ensuring the weapons are not going to militants.
The Arab official, the diplomat and the military experts said the material
was destined for "secular" fighters not necessarily linked to the Free
Syrian Army, the nominal umbrella group for the rebels. Jordan and other
Arabs have been critical of the FSA, which they accuse of having failed as
an effective or credible force because its elements lack the fighting skills
and military prowess.
The four described a system in which Saudi Arabia and Qatar provide the
funding for the weapons, while Jordan and Turkey provide the land channels
for the shipments to reach the rebels, while all coordinate with the U.S.
and other Western governments on the shipments' destinations. All must agree
for a shipment to go through. The Arab official said some of the arms are
being purchased from Croatia, or from U.S. drawdowns in unspecified European
countries. He said other sources were black market arms dealers across
Europe and the Mideast.
(MORE: Syria's Leader Appeals to African Summit for Help)
Jordanian Information Minister Sameeh Maayatah insisted the kingdom was not
helping funnel weapons. "Jordan is neither assisting the Assad regime, nor
its opponents," he told the AP. Instead, he argued, Jordan wants a "quick
political solution" to the Syrian crisis.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry would not confirm weapons transfer through
Turkey, saying, "We have no official information to confirm such reports or
claims."
Initially, Turkey was the main route for arms smuggled to the rebels when
the flow began in early 2012, but Washington was unhappy that some weapons
ended up in the hands of militants, the four said in separate interviews
with the AP.
Subsequently, Jordan became an additional route, with the first airlift
landing there Dec. 13, they said. Jordan insisted that its role remain
clandestine so that it would not be at risk of reprisal by Assad's forces or
rockets, they said. Jordan borders Syria to the south, and its frontier is
within a two-hour drive of Damascus.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian
opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in the
hands of secular groups. "I will tell you this: There is a very clear
ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what goes to the
moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them, and the
indication is that they are increasing their pressure as a result of that,"
he said, without elaborating.
Wrapping up a summit in Qatar on Tuesday, Arab states underlined their right
to arm the Syrian rebels, noting the growing frustration with Assad's regime
and with what is believed to be a supply of weapons flowing to his regime
from his main ally, Iran. Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are headed
by Sunni Muslim governments seeking the fall of Assad's regime, which is
dominated by Syria's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Arab
powers in particular are hoping Assad's departure would break the influence
in the region of predominantly Shiite Iran and its Hezbollah allies in
Lebanon.
In an interview with the AP last week, Jordan's King Abdullah II said
Assad's days were numbered, but warned of the risk that Syria might use
chemical weapons against its neighbors, including Jordan. Traditionally,
Damascus has been suspicious of its smaller southern neighbor, whom it
accuses of being a U.S. puppet and a spy for Israel since the 1994
Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty. Despite the tensions, their common border
has remained relatively quiet and open.
(MORE: In Syria, the Rebels Have Begun to Fight Among Themselves)
The opening of the weapons pipeline through Jordan "provides a fresh
approach" to Syrian rebels, said Shashank Joshi, a military expert who has
been monitoring the arms flow for two years for Britain's Royal United
Services Institute think tank.
"This way opens a new front in southern Syria. It breaks free from
connections with Saudi and Lebanese middlemen (in Turkey), while ensuring
the weapons get to those rebels with secular, or nationalist ties, rather
than the jihadists," he said.
Sweden-based arms trafficking expert Hugh Griffiths, who has been monitoring
the arms flow and collecting independent data, said some 3,500 tons of
military equipment have been shipped to the rebels since the traffic began
in early 2012. He said there were at least 160 airlifts of weapons
deliveries from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and later Jordan, with the most recent
being a shipment of unspecified material from Qatar to Turkey on Sunday.
"Nothing compares in terms of the intensity of these flights over
months-long periods at a time," said Griffiths, of the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute.
Two prominent independent researchers monitoring weapons traffic - Eliot
Higgins in Britain and Nic Jenzen-Jones in Australia - said Croatian arms
began appearing only recently in Syria. They include M60 recoilless guns,
M79 Osa rocket launchers, and RBG-6 grenade launchers, which all are
powerful anti-tank weapons.
Griffiths said the Croatian arms are a "major game changer." He said they
are "portable, but pack a much bigger explosive punch."
The question will be whether the arms influx will tip the balance if rebels
do launch an offensive for Damascus - and whether the attempt to boost more
moderate rebels over Islamists will be effective.
Syrian opposition activists estimate there are 15-20 different brigades
fighting in and around Damascus now, each with up to 150 fighters. Many of
them have Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white Islamic flags or
al-Qaida-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is also a presence of
Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic militant groups fighting
alongside the rebels. In the Damascus area, the al-Nusra fighters are active
mostly in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, but the presence is not as
strong as it is in the north and east.
Capt. Islam Alloush, a spokesman for Liwaa al-Islam, a prominent rebel
brigade with an Islamist ideology that is operating outside Damascus, denied
any arms were being smuggled into southern Syria. "If there are any weapons
being brought in, it would be from the north," he said.
Still, he said rebels were gearing up for the battle for Damascus. "We have
been preparing for it for a long time. We have our own strategy," he said.
"God willing, the battle for Damascus will begin soon."
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