US SENATORS STUNNED BY SYRIAN ARMY’S “DRAMATIC” ADVANCE
News number: 9203184528
13:34 | 2013-06-19
TEHRAN (FNA)- A bipartisan trio of key US senators expressed surprise
at the rapid and “dramatic” advances recently made by the Syrian army,
cautioning President Barack Obama that arming the rebels would not do
much to help them.
Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Carl Levin and Republican John
McCain said in a joint letter to Obama that government forces are
advancing so dramatically that providing weapons to the opposition
alone is unlikely to shift the war back in the rebels’ favor.
The administration last week authorized lethal aid to the rebels,
although the US had long been both directly sending arms and
facilitating Saudi and Qatari-procured arms cargos to the rebels.
Yet, the senators are now asking the US to enforce a no-fly zone and
start direct military intervention in Syria.
The senators said the US should consider targeting regime airfields,
runways and aircraft, and help rebels establish safe zones in Syria.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized
attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border
guards being reported across the country.
The US and its western and regional allies have long sought to topple
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his ruling system. Media reports
said that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups have received
significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid
for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United
States.
The US daily, Washington Post, reported in May that the Syrian rebels
and terrorist groups battling Assad’s government have received
significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid
for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United
States.
The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreign
officials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasized the
administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces
to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments of rebel
credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.
Opposition activists who several months ago said the rebels were
running out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons – most
bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements
of the Syrian military in the past – has significantly increased after
a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states to
provide millions of dollars in funding each month.
On Monday, NATO and a number of European governments, most
significantly the UK, started airlifting heavy weapons to the Syrian
rebels poised in Aleppo to fend off a major Syrian army offensive.
They disclose that the first shipments were landed Monday night, June
17, and early Tuesday in Turkey and Jordan.
They contained anti-air and tank missiles as well as recoilless 120 mm
cannons mounted on jeeps. From there, they were transferred to rebel
forces in Southern Syria and Aleppo in the Northwest, Debkafile’s
exclusive military sources reported.
The sources report that the first weapons reached rebel-held positions
in Aleppo early Tuesday.
The hardware for the rebels is coming in from three sources of NATO
stores in Europe, the Libyan black market, and the Balkan black
market, chiefly Serbia and Montenegro.
On Sunday, a report said that the US spy agency is gearing up to send
weapons to insurgent groups in Syria through secret bases in Turkey
and Jordan.
The bases are expected to begin conveying shipments of weapons and
ammunition within weeks, the US daily, The Washington Post, reported
Saturday, quoting unnamed American officials as saying.
“We have relationships today in Syria that we didn’t have six months
ago,” US President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser
Benjamin J. Rhodes said during a White House briefing Friday. The
United States is capable of delivering material “not only into the
country,” Rhodes said, but “into the right hands”.
US officials announced on Thursday that Obama had authorized sending
weapons to the militants in Syria ‘for the first time.’
On Saturday, American newspaper USA Today quoted Christopher Harmer,
an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, as saying that the
US is vetting to use Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, which is technically
a NATO air base, as a hub for supplying militants in Syria with
weapons.
Also on Sunday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the US
troops temporarily in neighboring Jordan will leave behind fighter
jets and a cache of Patriot missiles.
Early in March, a ranking member of the US marine troops deployed in
Afghanistan told FNA that the Pentagon made the decision to send a
major part of its light and semi-heavy weapons systems and military
equipment to the Syrian rebels along with its pullout from Afghanistan
when the former US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, was still in
office.
“The decision to send our arms and weapons systems in Afghanistan to
the rebel groups in Syria was originally made when the former US
Secretary of Defense was in his final days of office, yet the Pentagon
has also received the approval of the new Secretary, Chuck Hagel, as
well,” said the source who asked to remain anonymous due to the
sensitivity of his information.
“One of these cargos consists of the light and semi-heavy military
tools, equipment and weapons that the US army has gathered and piled
up in Kandahar Base and plans to send them to the rebels in Syria in
the form of several air and sea cargos and through Turkey and
specially Jordan,” he explained.
“These weapons and arms systems include anti-armor and missile
systems, rocket-launchers and rockets and tens of armored Humvees,”
the source added, explaining that senior war strategists in the
Pentagon believe that they can change the scene of the war in Syria in
the interest of the rebel groups with the help of these cargos,
specially the shoulder-launched missile systems and the multipurpose
Humvee vehicles.
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), commonly known
as the Humvee, travels as fast as 150 kilometers per hour under
different weather conditions and in various geographical climates, and
various types of machineguns, rocket-launchers and weapons systems can
be mounted on this vehicle.
As the US continues its pullout from Afghanistan, rebels in Syria have
failed to make any more advancement and the US, EU, Saudi Arabia and
Qatar were forced to soften their tone on the future of the almost
two-year-long conflict in the country after they found that the war of
attrition has rather worked in the interest of President Assad and his
troops.
This, military experts say, has apparently made the US change the war
strategy in Syria and open new fronts in the country.
The US and its allies have been sending most of their arms cargos to
the rebels through Turkey, which neighbors Northern Syria. Just last
week a Libyan member of the al-Qaeda disclosed that France has
supplied the rebel and terrorist groups in Syria with Russian Igla
anti-air missiles and even trained them how to use these systems.
Louay al-Mokdad, the political and media coordinator for the Free
Syrian Army, confirmed that the rebels have procured new weapons
donated from outside Syria, rather than bought on the black market or
seized during the capture of government facilities. But he declined to
say who was behind the effort.
Another coordinator for the Free Syrian Army, whose units have
received several cargos of these new arms supplies since in
mid-February, said “the goal of the supplies also is to shift the
focus of the war away from the North toward the South and the capital,
Assad’s stronghold”.
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