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On 5/9/19 11:05 AM, DW via Marxism wrote:
The article appears to be behind a pay wall.
The Australian
August 13, 2012 Monday, 1 - All-round Country Edition
CIA polices weapons entry to Syria as the spooks invade Turkey
Byline: JOHN FOLLAIN, TONY ALLEN-MILLS, ISTANBUL WASHINGTON
DESPITE mounting calls in Washington for a more aggressive US military
role in Syria, the CIA has been quietly working along its northern
border with Turkey to limit the supplies of weapons and ammunition
reaching rebel forces, Syrian opposition officials say.
``Not one bullet enters Syria without US approval,'' one official
complained in Istanbul. ``The Americans want the (rebellion) to
continue, but they are not allowing enough supplies in to make the
Damascus regime fall.''
Details of the CIA's policing activities offer a rare insight into the
complex struggle for regional advantage that is rapidly developing at
the margins of the Syrian civil war. Conducted mostly by clandestine
agents from the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran, the conflict
has turned Turkey's rugged border provinces into a hotbed of arms
dealers, spies and would-be fighters.
Over the past 10 months, a Syrian opposition official told The Sunday
Times, the CIA has blocked shipments of heavy anti-tank and
anti-aircraft weapons, which rebel units of the Free Syrian Army have
long said are vital to their efforts to overthrow the regime of
President Bashar al-Assad. At the same time they have approved supplies
of AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles, and just over a month ago gave the green
light to a shipment of 10,000 Russian-made rocket-propelled grenades.
``The weapons are being carried across the border on donkeys,'' the
official said.
Since the fall to rebel forces of Azaz, a Syrian town near the Turkish
border, guns have begun to arrive by truck.
The weapons are either bought on the black market in Istanbul or
supplied by the rebels' allies in Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
``Qatar sends money and usually says `Go and buy what you want','' the
official said.
``The Turks just give the weapons free of charge, especially light
anti-tank weapons.''
Yet rebel frustration is mounting at the CIA's reluctance to allow heavy
weaponry across the border for fear that it may eventually be used
against America's allies.
``The RPGs aren't enough,'' the opposition official said. ``You have to
be close to the tank to make any impact, and often the fighter using it
gets killed.''
The CIA's activities highlight a contradiction in Washington's approach
to Syria. While President Barack Obama's administration supports the
rebel uprising, has called for Assad to step down and is supplying
opposition forces with millions of dollars in non-lethal aid, it has
shied from a more forcible military intervention.
Suggestions that Washington was deliberately prolonging the conflict
while it attempted to identify a friendly successor to Assad were
described by one former CIA official as ``a little too Machiavellian''.
Bob Grenier, a former director of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said
the CIA's policing activities along the border were intended to protect
the administration from future embarrassment if the rebel groups it
supported turned out to be hostile to Israel or the US should they gain
power. ``It would not be good if it was later established that weapons
reached people identified with al-Qa'ida, and we could have done
something about it,'' he said.
He described the administration's current policy as ``hiding behind the
CIA''.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said in Turkey on Saturday
that measures to assist the rebels, including the possible imposition of
a no-fly zone, were being considered.
``It is one thing to talk about all kinds of potential actions, but
you cannot make reasoned decisions without doing intense analysis and
operational planning,'' she said.
CIA agents have been active along the border, trying to prevent
jihadists sympathetic to al-Qa'ida from joining the Syrian fray.
``The CIA vetoes al-Qa'ida and it's not very keen on the Muslim
Brotherhood,'' a Syrian opposition official said.
Khaled Khoja, from the opposition Syrian National Council, said American
fears of an Islamist takeover were unfounded.
``Islamists in Syria are a very minor group, no more than 2000 soldiers
compared with more than 100,000 FSA members,'' he said.
``They can be controlled. This won't be a new Iraq (where US forces
found themselves confronted by Islamic insurgents).''
With both the CIA and Israel's Mossad trying to locate Syria's
stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and Iranian agents
keeping a close eye on Western intervention, southern Turkey is
beginning to resemble a desert version of Cold War Berlin -- teeming
with spies engaged in a largely secret battle.
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