Arms Shipments Rise to Syrian Rebels

 

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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