Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.
That conclusion, of which President Obama and other senior officials are aware from classified assessments of the Syrian conflict that has now claimed more than 25,000 lives, casts into doubt whether the White House’s strategy of minimal and indirect intervention in the Syrian conflict is accomplishing its intended purpose of helping a democratic-minded opposition topple an oppressive government, or is instead sowing the seeds of future insurgencies hostile to the United States.
“The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” said one American official familiar with the outlines of those findings, commenting on an operation that in American eyes has increasingly gone awry.
The United States is not sending arms directly to the Syrian opposition. Instead, it is providing intelligence and other support for shipments of secondhand light weapons like rifles and grenades into Syria, mainly orchestrated from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The reports indicate that the shipments organized from Qatar, in particular, are largely going to hard-line Islamists. ...NYT
The problem is, of course Saudi and Qatar. But it will surely become Obama's problem even though, at the heart of the story, is David Petraeus, CIA head. Petraeus was entrusted with finding ways of getting aid to the right people in Syria. But Petraeus is up against it:
Officials of countries in the region say that Mr. Petraeus has been deeply involved in trying to steer the supply effort, though American officials dispute that assertion.One Middle Eastern diplomat who has dealt extensively with the C.I.A. on the issue said that Mr. Petraeus’s goal was to oversee the process of “vetting, and then shaping, an opposition that the U.S. thinks it can work with.” According to American and Arab officials, the C.I.A. has sent officers to Turkey to help direct the aid, but the agency has been hampered by a lack of good intelligence about many rebel figures and factions. ...NYT
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Some of Petraeus' efforts have included direct negotiations with Assad to cooperate with the US in going after Al Qaeda in Iraq. But that was back in early 2008.
Petraeus tried to warn Assad about what foreign fighters in Iraq could do if they turned on the Syrian regime. It didn't work. Bush 43, in 2008, told him and McChrystal to "stay patient" and they never made the trip to Damascus. "Today, al Qaeda in Iraq has trained its sights on Assad, just as the intelligence reports predicted, becoming a small but deadly part of the resistance in an escalating civil war that has killed more than 20,000 people over the past year and a half," write Michael Gordon and Wesley Morgan on FP. ...Foreign Policy
It's more than resistance. It's an AQ's effort to remake the Middle East.
The Assad regime began directly supporting Al-Qaeda as the U.S. invasion of Iraq neared, though the Hezbollah networks supported by Assad worked with Al-Qaeda before that. Now, Al-Qaeda in Iraq has turned its sights on its former sponsor, just as General David Petraeus predicted. One low-level Al-Qaeda operative in Iraq says, “Our big hope is to form a Syrian-Iraqi Islamic State for all Muslims, and then announce our war against Iran and Israel, and free Palestine.” ...Live Trading News (HongKong)
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As for the problems with the aid distribution by Qatar and Saudi Arabia:
Another growing problem is a lack of co-ordination between Qatar and the Saudis – the likely subject of Wednesday's talks in Doha between the Emir and the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar. King Abdullah is said to be growing impatient with the difficulties of the Syrian crisis. According to Syrian opposition activists, the Saudis now sponsor only rebel groups which are at odds with those backed by Qatar and Turkey, which are often linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
"The Qataris are much more proactive than the Saudis," said one well-placed Arab source. "The Saudis are not interested in democracy, they just want to be rid of Bashar. They would be happy with a Yemeni solution that gets rid of the president and leaves the regime intact."
Intelligence chiefs from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and France reportedly met in Turkey in early September along with the CIA director general, David Petraeus. But they apparently failed to reach agreement on a co-ordinated strategy.
US officials say the opaque nature of the opposition and the creeping presence of foreign jihadis are behind their pressure on Riyadh and Doha. ...The Guardian
