Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday the Obama administration was
confident that the vast majority of weapons being supplied to Syrian
rebels by U.S. allies were going to moderates and not finding their way
to extremists.
Kerry’s comments came as rebels captured the governor of the northern province of Raqqa after overrunning the provincial capital.
Speaking in Qatar – one of several Arab nations providing weapons to the rebels – Kerry told reporters he had spoken to Qatari leaders about the matter and said there were now “greater guarantees” that nearly all the arms and ammunition going to the opposition inside Syria were getting into the hands of moderates.
“We did discuss the question of the ability to try to guarantee that it is going to the right people and the moderate Syrian Opposition Coalition and I think it’s really in the last months that that has developed as a capacity that we have greater confidence in,” he said at a joint news conference with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim.
“You can’t guarantee that one weapon or another may not fall, in that kind of a situation, into the hands that you don’t want it to,” he said. “But, in terms of fundamental balance of battlefield tactics and of effort, I think it is pretty clear that the prime minister shares a belief in trying to do what we need to do rapidly and to try to effect this through the SNC.”
“There are greater guarantees now that the weapons are being transferred directly into the moderate Syrian opposition,” he said.
Kerry last week announced that the U.S would provide the Syrian Free Army with direct nonlethal military assistance like rations and medical supplies, but would hold off on arms.
The situation in Syria is too complicated right now to provide opposition forces with lethal aid, a senior U.S. military commander said during congressional testimony Tuesday.
Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, U.S. Central Command’s top officer, said he was concerned U.S. enemies might wind up with arms given to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad due to instability in Syria.
On the ground, government warplanes struck captured security buildings in Raqqa, casting a pall over the northern city a day after euphoric rebels seized much of it and captured the provincial governor, one of the highest-ranking officials to fall into rebel hands, activists said.
Fighters battled pockets of regime loyalists for control of Raqqa, a city of some 500,000 people on the Euphrates River. If the opposition succeeds, it would mark the first time an entire city has fallen into opposition hands.
But airstrikes and intermittent clashes Tuesday raised questions about whether the rebels would be able to maintain their hold on the city.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said opposition fighters captured the governor of Raqqa province, Hasan Jalali, after clashes overnight near the governor’s office in the provincial capital with the same name, and that the head of Assad’s ruling Baath party in the province, Salman al-Salman, was also in rebel custody. Observatory director Rami Abdel-Rahman said Jalali was one of the highest-ranking officials to be captured. An amateur video posted online by activists from Raqqa seemed to show Jalali and Salman seated on chairs surrounded by a group of rebels. The video appeared consistent with Associated Press reporting from Raqqa.
Amir, an activist in the city who gave only his first name, said the two had been detained by the Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda-linked group, and other fighters who swept into the city Monday. “They are detained in a location secured by Nusra [Front] and are being treated well,” he said.
Fighting raged Tuesday near an intelligence building as well as several other places, Abdel-Rahman said, adding: “Some of Raqqa is still under regime control.”
The government still holds military air bases outside the city and the Observatory said the regime carried out airstrikes on two targets in Raqqa, causing an unspecified number of casualties. Heavy fighting was also reported near an ammunition depot on the northern edge of the city. Abdel-Rahman cited reports of more than 100 people killed in the past two days but the toll could not be confirmed.
Another Raqqa-based activist, Mustafa Othman, said the warplanes struck several targets in the city, including former security buildings now under rebel control. He said regime elements were holed up in two other security buildings, adding that at least six people had been killed Tuesday.
He insisted that Raqqa was completely liberated but said as long as the regime controlled the skies, “I don’t know if I’ll be alive in the next minute.”
Elsewhere, fresh clashes broke out, pitting rebels against troops in insurgent enclaves of the central Syrian city of Homs, according to the Observatory.
An activist in the rebel-held Old City, under siege for eight months, likened Tuesday’s violence to “a war of attrition,” with heavy casualties on both sides.
“Everywhere you look, it’s raining bullets,” said Abu Bilal. “This is the army’s fiercest onslaught on Homs since the outbreak of the revolt.”
Source AFP
Kerry’s comments came as rebels captured the governor of the northern province of Raqqa after overrunning the provincial capital.
Speaking in Qatar – one of several Arab nations providing weapons to the rebels – Kerry told reporters he had spoken to Qatari leaders about the matter and said there were now “greater guarantees” that nearly all the arms and ammunition going to the opposition inside Syria were getting into the hands of moderates.
“We did discuss the question of the ability to try to guarantee that it is going to the right people and the moderate Syrian Opposition Coalition and I think it’s really in the last months that that has developed as a capacity that we have greater confidence in,” he said at a joint news conference with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim.
“You can’t guarantee that one weapon or another may not fall, in that kind of a situation, into the hands that you don’t want it to,” he said. “But, in terms of fundamental balance of battlefield tactics and of effort, I think it is pretty clear that the prime minister shares a belief in trying to do what we need to do rapidly and to try to effect this through the SNC.”
“There are greater guarantees now that the weapons are being transferred directly into the moderate Syrian opposition,” he said.
Kerry last week announced that the U.S would provide the Syrian Free Army with direct nonlethal military assistance like rations and medical supplies, but would hold off on arms.
The situation in Syria is too complicated right now to provide opposition forces with lethal aid, a senior U.S. military commander said during congressional testimony Tuesday.
Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, U.S. Central Command’s top officer, said he was concerned U.S. enemies might wind up with arms given to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad due to instability in Syria.
On the ground, government warplanes struck captured security buildings in Raqqa, casting a pall over the northern city a day after euphoric rebels seized much of it and captured the provincial governor, one of the highest-ranking officials to fall into rebel hands, activists said.
Fighters battled pockets of regime loyalists for control of Raqqa, a city of some 500,000 people on the Euphrates River. If the opposition succeeds, it would mark the first time an entire city has fallen into opposition hands.
But airstrikes and intermittent clashes Tuesday raised questions about whether the rebels would be able to maintain their hold on the city.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said opposition fighters captured the governor of Raqqa province, Hasan Jalali, after clashes overnight near the governor’s office in the provincial capital with the same name, and that the head of Assad’s ruling Baath party in the province, Salman al-Salman, was also in rebel custody. Observatory director Rami Abdel-Rahman said Jalali was one of the highest-ranking officials to be captured. An amateur video posted online by activists from Raqqa seemed to show Jalali and Salman seated on chairs surrounded by a group of rebels. The video appeared consistent with Associated Press reporting from Raqqa.
Amir, an activist in the city who gave only his first name, said the two had been detained by the Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda-linked group, and other fighters who swept into the city Monday. “They are detained in a location secured by Nusra [Front] and are being treated well,” he said.
Fighting raged Tuesday near an intelligence building as well as several other places, Abdel-Rahman said, adding: “Some of Raqqa is still under regime control.”
The government still holds military air bases outside the city and the Observatory said the regime carried out airstrikes on two targets in Raqqa, causing an unspecified number of casualties. Heavy fighting was also reported near an ammunition depot on the northern edge of the city. Abdel-Rahman cited reports of more than 100 people killed in the past two days but the toll could not be confirmed.
Another Raqqa-based activist, Mustafa Othman, said the warplanes struck several targets in the city, including former security buildings now under rebel control. He said regime elements were holed up in two other security buildings, adding that at least six people had been killed Tuesday.
He insisted that Raqqa was completely liberated but said as long as the regime controlled the skies, “I don’t know if I’ll be alive in the next minute.”
Elsewhere, fresh clashes broke out, pitting rebels against troops in insurgent enclaves of the central Syrian city of Homs, according to the Observatory.
An activist in the rebel-held Old City, under siege for eight months, likened Tuesday’s violence to “a war of attrition,” with heavy casualties on both sides.
“Everywhere you look, it’s raining bullets,” said Abu Bilal. “This is the army’s fiercest onslaught on Homs since the outbreak of the revolt.”
Source AFP
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