Konflikten i Syrien

Since late last year, CIA and U.S. military operatives have been teaching Syrian rebels how to use anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns at bases in Jordan and Turkey, according to U.S. and rebel sources.

The training has involved fighters from the Free Syrian Army, a loose confederation of rebel groups that the Obama administration has promised to back with expanded military assistance, said a U.S. official, who discussed the effort anonymously because he was not authorized to disclose details.

The number of rebels given U.S. instruction in both countries since the program began could not be determined, but in Jordan, the training involves 20 to 45 insurgents at a time, a rebel commander said.

U.S. special operations teams selected the trainees over the last year when the U.S. military set up regional supply lines to provide the rebels with nonlethal assistance, including uniforms, radios and medical aid.

The two-week courses include training with Russian-designed 14.5-millimeter anti-tank rifles, anti-tank missiles, as well as 23-millimeter anti-aircraft weapons, according to a rebel commander in the Syrian province of Dara who helps oversee weapons acquisitions and who asked his name not be used because the program is secret.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Bittar, who defected as a fighter pilot from Assad’s air force last year and is now head of intelligence for the Free Syrian Army, said training for the last month or so has taken place in Jordan.

The training, conducted by American, Jordanian and French operatives, involves rockets and anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry, he said.

– De ska distribueras till våra soldater och officerare ute vid fronten, säger Louay Muqdad, talesperson för rebellsidan.

Rebellarmén FSA vägrar dock berätta vilka vapen det rör sig om eller var de kommer ifrån.

– Men vi tror att de kan ändra riktningen i striderna, säger FSA-presstalesman Louay Muqdad till nyhetsbyrån AFP.

FSA-talespersonen Louay Muqdad uppger också att nya vapenleveranser är att vänta.

– Vi behöver pansar- och luftvärnsvapen och ammunition, säger Louay Muqdad till AFP.

Burhan Ghalioun, högt uppsatt person inom oppositionen, erkänner att rebellerna har fått ett "luftvärnssystem" och andra "sofistikerade vapen".

En annan anonym källa berättar för AFP att luftvärnssystemet var tillverkat i Ryssland, men vägrade tala om från vilket land det kom till Syrien.

– Vapnen ska användas till att bekämpa regimen. Men efter kriget ska de samlas in. Det löftet har vi gett våra vänner och brödraländer, säger Louay Muqdad.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/uk-syria-rebels-islamists-specialreport-idUKBRE95I0BJ20130619
Special Report - Syria's Islamists seize control as moderates dither

(Reuters) - As the Syrian civil war got under way, a former electrician who calls himself Sheikh Omar built up a brigade of rebel fighters. In two years of struggle against President Bashar al-Assad, they came to number 2,000 men, he said, here in the northern city of Aleppo. Then, virtually overnight, they collapsed.

Omar's group, Ghurabaa al-Sham, wasn't defeated by the government. It was dismantled by a rival band of revolutionaries - hardline Islamists.

The Islamists moved against them at the beginning of May. After three days of sporadic clashes Omar's more moderate fighters, accused by the Islamists of looting, caved in and dispersed, according to local residents. Omar said the end came swiftly.

The Islamists confiscated the brigade's weapons, ammunition and cars, Omar said.

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Sheikh Omar told the story of his brigade while sitting in a cramped room at his headquarters, a small one-storey building surrounded by olive tree fields in Aleppo province.

He said he was from a poor background in rural Aleppo province. When he and a handful of others had started a rebel group to oppose Assad, fear had made it hard to recruit. The rich and law-abiding were scared. Only outlaws and reprobates would join him at first.

"We were looking for good people. But who was willing to work for me and help me? Those who used to go to bars, to fight with people and steal. Those are the people who allied with me and fought against the regime." As he spoke some of his remaining fighters tried to interject; he silenced them, saying he wanted to be honest.


Where the government forces did cede ground, Aleppo's residents did not welcome the rebels with open arms. Most fighters were poor rural people from the countryside and the residents of Aleppo say they stole. Omar acknowledged this happened.

"Our members in Aleppo were stealing openly. Others stole everything and were taking Syria's goods to sell outside the country. I was against any bad action committed by Ghurabaa al-Sham. However, things happened and opinion turned against us," he said as his men squirmed in their seats, uncomfortable with his words.


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The Islamists are more energetic and better organised. The main two hardline groups to emerge in Syria are Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, an al Qaeda offshoot that has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings, including several in Damascus in which civilians were killed.

But Islamist fighters, dressed in black cotton with long Sunni-style beards, have developed a reputation for being principled. Dozens of residents living in areas of rebel-held territory across northern Syria told Reuters the same thing, whether they agreed with the politics of Jabhat al-Nusra or not: the Islamists do not steal.


Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who researches Islamic militants, said the main reason groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham have become popular is because of the social provisions they supply. "They are fair arbiters and not corrupt."

In Aleppo four Islamist brigades, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, have taken over the role of government and are providing civilians with day-to-day necessities. They have also created a court based on Islamic religious laws, or shari



The head of the Aleppo branch of the Revolutionary Military Police, Abu Ahmed Rahman, comes from Liwa al-Tawhid, the largest rebel force in Aleppo. Ostensibly al-Tawhid has pledged its support for the U.S.-recognised Syrian National Coalition, but its role in the Authority alongside Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra shows an alliance with more radical groups.

He said that the worst problem the police had encountered so far was with Ghurabaa al-Sham, who had clashed with a sub-division of Liwa al-Tahwid for control of Aleppo's industrial city, a complex of factories and office blocks sprawling over 4,000 hectares on the north-east outskirts of the city.

"Ghurabaa al-Sham fighters were annoying people, looting," he said. The industrial area offered plenty of plunder. Residents of Aleppo said rebels found machinery and equipment in the factories that could be sold in Turkey.

Rahman said the Authority summoned Ghurabaa al-Sham to a hearing but they didn't show up. "Then all the brigades went to get them. Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other rebel units," he said.