US Helps Arms Pour into Syria as Rebels Spurn Peace Deal

'Non-Lethal' Aid Means Massive Influx of Weapons

The Obama Administration’s promise to provide “non-lethal” aid coincides almost perfectly with the point at which the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Syrian National Council (SNC), initially ambivalent about the UN peace deal, began condemning the pact and launching huge attacks on Syrian military targets.

That’s no coincidence, though, as the “non-lethal aid” turns out to have come in the form of huge quantities of high tech weaponry, which the US didn’t directly pay for but which the US is helping to smuggle into the country.

The report arrives as US officials say that they consider the ceasefire a “failure” and a civil war “inevitable.” Indeed it seems to be, now that the rebels are awash in arms from the GCC nations and have tacit US backing to spurn the ceasefire.

On Monday, the rebels attacked Syrian troops around Rastan, killing at least 23 soldiers. Yesterday, they engaged in an even bigger fight along the coast, capturing four UN ceasefire monitors in the process.

US and other western officials have repeatedly blamed the Assad regime for all of the ceasefire violations, and while combatants on both sides have violated it in small measure, the big attacks and the official condemnations of the peace talks have come from the rebels, and the US has been fueling this belligerence.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.