[Little Ray]

They were going after Syrian forces and their command, control and communications (C^3); break enough of this stuff and Al Qaeda can finish the job.

Dunno why they think that Al Qaeda and the Moslem Brotherhood would be any more cooperative than Assad, though.

[MarMema]

Supposedly the Saudis believe they can control the rebels. There are some fairly legit reports out there that the Saudi king has been bribing and threatening Putin over releasing chechens to destroy the winter olympics in Sochi.

I just posted a link to one on another thread because Putin makes me laugh - he made a typical Putin comment referring to the rebels as liver-eaters.