DEVELOPMENTS
• Arming Syrians fighting on either side of the country’s bloody conflict could lead to more war crimes, the head of the U.N. commission investigating human rights abuses in Syria warned Friday. Paulo Pinheiro stopped short of directly criticizing the United States or other nations arming Syrians, saying the commission does not comment on decisions by governments. But his remarks came about a week after President Barack Obama authorized sending weapons to rebels for the first time.
• Syrian rebels said Friday they have received new weapons from friendly countries that could lead to changes on the ground and victories against President Bashar Assad’s forces. The arms shipments arrived recently from Arab nations and other countries, a spokesman for the opposition fighters, Loay AlMikdad, said.
•About a dozen U.S. fighter jets will be flying and conducting training operations in Jordan, poised to respond if needed to protect allies if the war in neighboring Syria spills over the border, U.S. administration officials said Friday.
• Russia’s foreign minister said Friday that Washington is sending contradictory signals on Syria that could derail an international conference intended to end that country’s civil war, warning that U.S. talk about a possible no-fly zone would only encourage the rebels to keep fighting.
The Syrian opposition’s record so far in handling tens of millions of dollars in U.S. humanitarian and other nonlethal assistance paints a bewildering picture of logistical challenges ahead of any delivery of American weapons and ammunition.
No aid shipments appear to be heading to terrorists or corrupt hoarders, according to U.S. officials, but packages of food, medicine and other lifesaving supplies regularly face long delays because of political rivalries among various rebel factions.
Anecdotes abound.
An American shipment of humanitarian goods was held up for two weeks amid a dispute between opposition groups over whose label should be attached to the boxes, a senior administration official recounted this week. Aid-filled planes have landed in neighboring countries with no trucks at the landing sites for transporting the items into Syria. In Cairo, funds the U.S. was prepared to provide an opposition political office were flat-out rejected, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
Although the Syrian opposition’s described dysfunction is nothing new, its problems are getting increased scrutiny since the Obama administration’s decision last week to authorize lethal military support to units fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Secretary of State John Kerry plans to use a meeting today in Doha, Qatar, of officials from countries allying themselves with the rebels to underscore the need for coordinating and funneling aid through the Supreme Military Council, senior State Department officials said Friday.
Beyond that, the Obama administration’s plans are unclear. Kerry held two classified briefings with members of Congress on Thursday. No details emerged about what types of weapons could be sent, where and when they’d be delivered or who exactly would be the recipients. The lack of clarity rankles both lawmakers who want more forceful U.S. action as well as those who say the U.S. should stay as far away as possible from Syria’s brutal two-year civil war.
“All I know is what I’ve read in the media and that is light weapons,” said Sen. John McCain, a leading Republican proponent of taking a bigger military role in Syria. “That’s clearly not only insufficient, it’s insulting. We’ve got to take out their air assets.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, another Republican supporter of arming the rebels and other steps such as establishing a no-fly zone over Syria, said he also had no understanding from the Obama administration about what form future lethal aid might take and possible delivery dates.
Meanwhile, Senate opponents of arming the rebels moved Thursday to block Obama from providing any military support at all. The bipartisan group, including Sens. Tom Udall, a Democrat, Mike Lee, a Republican, Chris Murphy, a Democrat, and Rand Paul, a Republican, introduced a measure to prohibit the president from using any money to increase U.S. involvement in the conflict. Specifically, it would ban the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies from funding military, paramilitary or covert operations in Syria.
“We need to place a check on the president’s unilateral decision to arm the rebels, while still preserving humanitarian aid and assistance to the Syrian people,” Udall said.
Paul said the president’s decision was “incredibly disturbing, considering what little we know about whom we are arming. Engaging in yet another conflict in the Middle East with no vote or congressional oversight compounds the severity of this situation.”
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