Mideast powers opposed to President Bashar Assad have dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the capital of Damascus, officials and Western military experts said Wednesday.
A carefully prepared covert operation is arming rebels, involving Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, with the United States and other Western governments consulting, and all parties hold veto power over where the shipments are directed, according to a senior Arab official whose government is participating. His account was corroborated by a diplomat and two military experts.
The Arab official said the number of arms airlifts into Jordan and Turkey has doubled in the past four weeks. He did not provide exact figures on the flights or the size of the cargo. Jordan opened up as a new route for the weapons late last year amid U.S. worries that arms from Turkey were going to Islamic militants, all four said in separate interviews. Jordan denies helping funnel weapons to the rebels.
The two military experts, who closely follow the traffic, said the weapons include Croatian-made anti-tank guns and rockets that are more powerful than those the rebels had before.
The Arab official said there was a “master plan” for the rebels to seize Damascus. He and the diplomat spoke on condition that their identities and their nationalities not be disclosed because the operation was covert.
“The idea is that the rebels now have the necessary means to advance from different fronts — north from Turkey and south from Jordan — to close in on Damascus to unseat Assad,” the Arab official said. He declined to provide details, but said the plan is being prepared in stages and will take “days or weeks” for results.
Rebels have captured suburbs around Damascus but have been largely unable to break into the heavily guarded capital. Instead, they have hit central neighborhoods of the city with increasingly heavy mortar volleys from their positions to the northeast and south.
But rebels in the south are fighting to secure supply lines from the border with Jordan to the capital, and the new influx of weapons from Jordan has fueled the drive, a rebel commander in a southwestern suburb of the capital said. The consensus among the multiple rebel groups was that Damascus is the next objective, he added.
“There is an attempt to secure towns and villages along the international line linking Amman and Damascus. Significant progress is being made. The new weapons come in that context,” said the commander.
Assad is apparently feeling the pressure. In a letter, he beseeched a five-nation group of emerging powers Wednesday to help halt the Syrian conflict. Addressing the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — the so-called BRICS group of developing nations, which is holding a summit meeting in Durban, South Africa — he sought to frame his request as a plea for assistance in the fight of good against evil.
Assad depicted the opposition forces as terrorists bent on destroying Syria with help from a conspiracy of hostile Arab and Western countries.
”You, with all the huge political, economic and cultural weight you represent that seeks to consolidate peace, security and justice in the troubled world of today, are called upon to exert all possible efforts to end the suffering of the Syrian people,” Assad said in the letter, as reported by SANA, the official Syrian news agency.
But there was no indication that the BRICS group would align itself with Assad in the conflict, which has left more than 70,000 people dead and millions displaced.
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