Posted on 06/21/2013 9:45:56 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
BEIRUT — Syrian rebels said Friday that newly arrived shipments of heavy weaponry could swing the momentum on the battlefield in their favor, after a shift in U.S. policy opened the door for others to send them arms.
Weapons from the United States have not materialized since the White House announced last week it had authorized direct military support for the opposition, but the U.S. decision appears to have prompted other nations to increase assistance, with new deliveries including highly prized antitank and antiaircraft weaponry, according to Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the main Syrian Opposition Coalition.
Saleh declined to provide specifics but said shipments had come from countries in the Friends of Syria Group, a coalition of 11 Western and Arab nations that back the opposition. The group is due to meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Saturday to discuss coordinating military support for the rebels.
“It’s not all the advanced weapons that we’ve asked for, but it is a few that mean we will be able to respond to attacks by air and tanks,” Saleh said, linking their arrival to the White House decision. “The U.S. changing its position sends a very strong signal to the other countries,” he said.
CIA operatives and U.S. Special Operations troops have been secretly training selected rebel groups to use antitank and antiaircraft weapons in Jordan and Turkey since late last year, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times on Friday. The Pentagon and the CIA declined to comment on the report.
Five rebel commanders, defectors from President Bashar al-Assad’s regular army who now lead battalions in southern Syria, said this week that they had attended or were familiar with training camps in Jordan run by what they described as U.S. intelligence officers and U.S. military officers. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
No, this is good guys. You don’t want Assad to win,... or lose. You want him neutralized and kept in limbo. Putin in Russia will make sure to keep Assad armed, and our side, along with others, will keep the opposition armed. Result, no one wins, and both sides continue to fight each other, which is exactly what we should want. Keep these animals busy fighting each other, and thus they leave the rest of us alone. Perfect.
They will continue to decimate each other, not a bad thing, and keep the rest of the Middle East busy supplying and/or fighting on either side of this civil war (actually Sunni vs. Shi’ite war). All the good little martyrs from other countries will be flocking to the Syrian fight, and thus stay out of everyone in the West’s hair. Keep the fight even so that no one wins, and meanwhile many of these martyrs will end up with their 72 virgins, and thus out of the game on this mortal earth.
Yeah, we did real politic with Iraq/Iran for 10 years, supporting Iraq just enough to keep the fight going. Personally, I would like for us to dis-involve our ourselves from the crazy Middle East. We have enough problems at home that we have to work on.
real politic = realpolitik
Why not give these “patriots” the best, Obama? Surely they deserve nothing less /sarc
In other news, the non-black lynching of Zimmerman is winding up to dominate the news cycle to bury the facts...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.