DEBKAfile Special Report May 4, 2015,
For the first time in the nearly five-year Syrian war, opposition forces, such as the Army of Conquest and the Free Syrian Army, are receiving substantial quantities of heavy weapons from the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. The balance of strength in the Syrian war has accordingly shifted in favor of rebel forces which are are winning victories against Bashar Assad’s army. In the last two weeks, the rebels have captured Jisr al-Shughour, in the northern Idlib province, able to move into new positions directly opposite Assad’s Alawite stronghold of Latakia and the Homs plain. Rebels have also gained ground in southern Syria in the Quneitra region opposite the Israeli Golan.
Our intelligence sources report that the opposition is now armed as never before with such heavy weapons as T-55, T-62, and T-72 tanks, BMP infantry fighting vehicles, rocket launchers, mortars, and vehicle-mounted heavy antiaircraft machine guns (12.7, 14.5, and 23 mm). They now command at least four types of antitank weapons, including RPG-7s, RPG-22s, M79s, and an extra-large supply of thousands of TOW missiles. All the hardware has come with night-vision attachments.
Had the Syrian opposition forces been equipped on this scale at an earlier stage, the Syrian conflict might have ended some time ago with Assad’s defeat and the saving of some quarter-of-a-million lives.
Each of the powers putting out now has reasons of its own for doing so.
The United States for instance, is determined to prevent the Syrian ruler and his allies, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hizballah and Afghan and Pakistani Shiite militias, from wnning the war.
Israel needs to distance the Iranian Guards and Hizballah from its borders with Syria.
Saudi Arabia seeks Assad’s overthrow.
However, on the way to these objectives, the rebels’ champions have come up against a disturbing by-product of their support: The lion’s share of the weaponry lavished on the opposition is being funneled to rebel groups associated or identified with Al Qaeda.
DEBKAfile lists those recipients:
1. The Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, is the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’s main rival for Syrian domination. Nusra is the strongest and most professional of all the opposition militias fighting the Assad regime. Having laid hands on a profusion of advanced weapons, Nusra has established a training facility in the Qalamoun Mts. athwart the Syrian and Lebanese border, to perfect its fighters’ skills in their use, especialy the TOW anti-tank missiles.
2. Ahrar al-Sham, whose main champion is Qatar, is more radical than Nusra and maintains limited operational ties with ISIS.
3. The Coastal Division, whose area of operation is Latakia, is formally a branch of the Free Syrian Army, but in practice takes its orders from the Nusra Front.
4. The Sukur Al Ahab Brigades, which operates mainly in the Qalamoun mountains, is likewise subservient to Nusra.
5. The Southern Front coalition, which is present in southern Syria near the Israeli border, is also under Nusra command. This group of assorted militias led the battle last month for Quneitra against the Jaish al-Jihad (the Army of Jihad) which pledged allegiance to ISIS.
It is not lost on any of the foreign governments arming the Syrian opposition that they are in fact boosting radical Islamist organizations, some of which are close to al Qaeda. But it is not openly admitted. US officials prefer to depict the recipients of those weapons as “moderate” rebels. Israel sources admit that their military assistance reaches the hands of Al Nusra, but claims it is a local group, which operates independently of Al Qaeda.
It is hard to see much good coming out of the Syrian policy pursued these days by the US, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates and Turkey: If the opposition militias they are arming are victorious, either Al Qaeda-associates will end up swallowing broad regions of Syria; or else they will overthrow the Assad regime, and rule in its stead in Damascus. Syria would then be the first Arab country to fall into Al Qaeda’s hands.
I have been saying all along that this was always the case… it did not just happen “now”
did the author forget the convenient transfer of heavy arms to the baathist sadaam ex army officers leading IS. It was portrayed as an attack by hostile forces that seized all that US weaponry. very convenient method of arming with plausible deniability. Less risky than the arming at Benghazi, we saw how that turned out.
It was never any other way: whether you pretend it is IS, Nusra, FSA, etc…. they are all operating on instructions that end accomplishing the agenda of the Sunni axis against the shia axis OR the western, GCC, Sunni proxies against the Russian, Iranian, syrian, Hezbullah proxies. It never changed. the red herrings were thrown in to distract the gullible and as I predicted all is morphing back into the original goals which never changed… they only appeared to change(shifting alliances,etc).
LOL, no rocket science here: each recipient is controlled, instructed and financed by a member of the sunni axis. the cannon fodder on the ground operates on a need to know basis without knowledge of the real goals. This is why some attack their own side. It does not matter to the controllers which group controls the territories and when those groups step beyond their intended boundaries they are bombed back to their positions and intended lines. In the end they are weakening Irans proxies, removing territorial control from the Iranian axis. If readers go back over the last couple of years they can see that it has been happening as I predicted from the beginning. all the fake quarrels are disappearing (Qatar/GCC, Qatar/Egypt, Obama/Egypt, etc etc) as the appearance and structure morph back into position.
the only group israel worries about on their borders is the shia axis. Israel operates as if they know what is going to happen from the sunni jihadis, some of whom even offered the golan for help publicly. Israel knows because of the understandings with the GCC that I have been writing here about for years. those same understandings that appear as mysteries to many but are clear when seen in the light of what I wrote and is still operating.
No, it is easy to see if you followed my posts. the good coming out is the coordinated collaborative effort to weaken the Iranian proxies, take land from their control, weaken and lessen the Iranian blowback potential agianst israel in the event of an attack against Iran. This blowback weakening is the result of the GCC/Qatar leashing of Hamas, the weaning of Hamas from iran, the GCC/Egypt leashing of Hamas, the GCC spreading Hezbullah and IRG thin over 3 nations. I postedlong ago what the motivations of each of the sunni colaborators was at the beginning of this western/sunni axis.. including Turkey and the Kurds: Turkey pipeline to the Med,Turkey support of Barzani Kurds and the reverse, the weakening of the shia iraq hold on kurdistan, the advancement of Kurdish national aspirations in Iraq, the advancement of the Turkish/barzani kurd alliance in the Syrian Kurdish areas of Kobani etc.
I expect the main goal is the negotiation of a new geopolitical Syria similar to the fragmentation of Iraq, which is moving closer to fragmentation. if Iran does not come into agreement then the next step which I have predicted over years would be the internal destabilization of Iran by its large ethnic minorities(azeris, baluchis, sunnis, kurds) coupled with the employment of the same sunni jihadis already operating in Iraq/syria and Lebanon.
As AQ appears to be a proxy mercenary force I would expect that upon accomplishing goals it will fade and morph into other theaters leaving behind the locals and politicians.
the empty plane indicates the possibility that something or someone was on it
MRG
Ask Yamit and b ross
What happens to the Kurds?
Nobody wins in this mess, just some people lose less.
If Assad’s forces are defeated, has anyone asked what will replace it?