Free Republic

A Kurdish militia in northern Syria has joined forces with Arab rebels, and their new alliance has been promised fresh weapon supplies by the United States for an assault on Islamic State forces in Raqqa, a spokesman said on Monday. The alliance calling itself the Democratic Forces of Syria includes the Kurdish YPG militia and Syrian Arab groups, some of which fought alongside it in a campaign that drove Islamic State from wide areas of northern Syria earlier this year. The Arab groups in the new alliance are operating under the name "The Syrian Arab Coalition" - a grouping which...

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Insurgent commanders say that since Russia began air attacks in support of the Syrian government, they are receiving for the first time bountiful supplies of powerful American-made antitank missiles. With the enhanced insurgent firepower and with Russia steadily raising the number of airstrikes against the government’s opponents, the Syrian conflict is edging closer to an all-out proxy war between the United States and Russia. The increased levels of support have raised morale on both sides of the conflict, broadening war aims and hardening political positions, making a diplomatic settlement all the more unlikely. The American-made TOW antitank...

<p>The U.S. military airdropped 50 tons of ammunition to Syrian rebels fighting ISIS on Sunday — the latest maneuver in the United States' attempt to help turn the tide of a chaotic civil war.</p> <p>The airdrop, consisting of AK-47 rounds, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds, targeted rebels in ISIS-held territory in northern Syria, senior defense and military officials told NBC News.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say the CIA has been delivering light machine guns and other small arms to Syrian rebels for several weeks, following President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the rebels. The agency has also arranged for the Syrian opposition to receive anti-tank weaponry like rocket-propelled grenades through a third party, presumably one of the Gulf countries that has been arming the rebels, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official and two former intelligence officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the classified program publicly.

Don’t worry.  I’m sure these weapons will be going to the really nice rebels that John McCain assures us we can distinguish from all the naughty ones: The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil...

The rebel forces aligned against Syrian strong-man Bashar Assad are dominated by jihadists and fighters aligned with al-Qaeda. In April, the Obama Administration promised to help arm the rebel forces, but, realizing the very real complications on the ground, that promise has been muted. As the Administration strives to ensure that US arms only go to moderates fighting Assad, GOP Senator Bob Corker openly blasted the Administration for its frugality in suppling arms to jihadis. “It was humiliating,” Corker said in an interview with The Washington Post following a recent trip to the Syrian border. “The president had announced that we...

Diplomatic sources told the Sunday Times that the U.S. "bought weapons from the stockpiles of Libya's former dictator Muammar Gaddafi." The heavy arms include mortars, rocket propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and the controversial anti-aircraft heat-seeking SA-7 missiles, which are integral to countering Bashar Al-Assad's bombing campaign. The administration has said that the previously hidden CIA operation in Benghazi involved finding, repurchasing and destroying heavy weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, but in October we reported evidence indicating that U.S. agents — particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens — were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian...