Western Support to Terrorists

According to documents obtained by the Independent and  extensive talks on the ground by the British newspaper, the level of equipment sent by the West to Syria’s terrorists were divided between the Islamists and more so-called moderate factions to equip them for the fight against the Syrians.

The British Government, added the Daily,  is considering sending weapons to opposition  fighters. So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4×4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4×4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers.

According to the Daily, CIA officers have, in fact, been carrying out vetting since June last year. But the political and religious beliefs of the terrorists khatibas or battalions, have not remained constant. “The problem is that some of the khatibas which used to be semi-secular have now become Islamist. So it’s a question of constant monitoring,” said a security contractor, a former US army Ranger who is part of a liaison team with the Syrian opposition in Turkey.

The same uncertainty has limited the number of “moderate” fighters passing through training camps in Jordan run by former Western military personnel; fortnight-long courses largely restricted to instructions on tactics and the use of small arms. There is some evidence, however, of small quantities of missiles arriving in Syria for the opposition, some of them apparently obtained from Croatia in a shipment organized by the Americans and paid for by Gulf states earlier this year.

More recently the terrorists have also used Konkurs wire-guided anti-tank missiles from former Warsaw Pact arsenals. the missiles are largely in the hands of Islamist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham.

 Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim