{"id":15486,"date":"2012-06-19T11:06:54","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T19:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=15486"},"modified":"2012-06-19T11:07:41","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T19:07:41","slug":"details-on-us-aid-to-syrian-rebels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/19\/details-on-us-aid-to-syrian-rebels\/","title":{"rendered":"Details on US Aid to Syrian Rebels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/security\/2012\/06\/18\/499988\/obama-syrian-rebels\/?mobile=nc\">Via Ali Gharib<\/a>, what the Obama administration is providing the Syrian rebels:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>LOGISTICS AND COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANCE<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 U.S. officials told the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702303410404577464763551149048.html?mod=WSJ__MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird\">Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday that \u201cU.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations.\u201d This includes helping with logistics and communications. The officials also told the Journal that the U.S. was considering providing intelligence to the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>CONSULTING ON ARMS SALES<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 As in Libya, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/security\/2012\/06\/15\/500433\/mccain-arms-rebels-libya-syria\/\">U.S. is reportedly not directly involved<\/a>\u00a0in arming rebel forces. But that doesn\u2019t mean \u2014 in either case \u2014 the U.S. is not involved at all. The New York Times\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/06\/13\/world\/middleeast\/violence-in-syria-continues-as-protesters-killed.html?pagewanted=all\">reported last week<\/a>\u00a0that Syrian activists claimed the U.S. was \u201cconsulted\u201d on arms deals where Saudi Arabia and Qatar paid for the Turks to make the transfers (U.S. officials said \u201cthey recognized that Syria\u2019s neighbors would do so\u201d).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>GATHERING INTELLIGENCE ON REBELS<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Journal also noted that \u201cstepped-up links with the FSA are also part of an effort to gain a better understanding of the rebels\u2019 capabilities and of the identities\u201d in a bid to split the FSA from extremist anti-government fighters. This is in line with an earlier report that the administration\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/security\/2012\/05\/29\/491248\/romney-obama-syria-plan\/\">considered<\/a>\u00a0facilitating allies\u2019 work to arm anti-government forces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>TECHNOLOGICAL AID AND TRAINING<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Time Magazine\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/world.time.com\/2012\/06\/13\/hillarys-little-startup-how-the-u-s-is-using-technology-to-aid-syrias-rebels\/\">reported<\/a>\u00a0last week that the administration ran a robust program of helping rebel communications not only among each other and allies, but also with the outside world. Those enraging videos of Assad\u2019s foces shelling densely urban areas? Some of them are captured by rebels carrying guns in one hand and U.S.-provided cameras in the other, and uploaded to the web over satellite communications provided by the U.S. and operated with U.S. training.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is at least what has been made public on US assistance to the Syrian opposition fighters. See <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/05\/09\/kerry-argues-for-safe-zones-and-arming-the-syrian-opposition\/\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/05\/29\/white-house-military-action-in-syria-would-worsen-the-conflict\/\">here<\/a> for some of why this aid is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/13\/the-hubris-of-meddling-in-syria-exporting-wahabism-from-kabul-to-damascus\/\">problematic<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/05\/in-syria-a-problem-of-intervention\/\">likely to exacerbate the conflict<\/a>. Partly making up the rebels are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/13\/washington-al-qaeda-united-on-syria\/&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=aM3gT5iyJsHd0QG56czBDg&amp;ved=0CAUQFjAA&amp;client=internal-uds-cse&amp;usg=AFQjCNFKsEd9awrWqhzjPXMbY-MLQFpvpA\">elements of al-Qaeda<\/a> and other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/06\/09\/report-syrian-rebels-responsible-for-houla-massacre\/&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=fc3gT9r4OOao0AG3za2YDg&amp;ved=0CAUQFjAA&amp;client=internal-uds-cse&amp;usg=AFQjCNF7pVMc8-Ny3RG95v5wPP0w5suq3Q\">Sunni extremists<\/a> and UN reports <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/05\/24\/un-report-both-state-forces-and-rebel-militias-are-committing-atrocities\/&amp;sa=U&amp;ei=m83gT_v0OImwhAfR4aTZDQ&amp;ved=0CA8QFjAF&amp;client=internal-uds-cse&amp;usg=AFQjCNGz9m_iuxZagY90LvnukENSTITjUw\">have confirmed<\/a> they have committed serious crimes and atrocities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Ali Gharib, what the Obama administration is providing the Syrian rebels: LOGISTICS AND COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANCE\u00a0\u2013 U.S. officials told the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0on Thursday that \u201cU.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations.\u201d This includes helping with logistics and communications. The officials [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15488,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15486\/revisions\/15488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15486"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}