Members of the Free Syrian Army aim their weapons as they take up a defensive position in Aleppo's Salaheddine district June 25, 2013.(Reuters / Hamid Khatib)

 The CIA is stockpiling arms in Jordan for US-trained Syrian rebels, which they will use in an offensive against Damascus starting August, according to The Wall Street Journal. Up to hundreds of fighters are to be armed and sent to the battlefield monthly.

The intelligence agency had stored Soviet-made arms at a network of secret warehouses in advance of the Obama administration’s decision to provide military assistance to the militants fighting against the government of Bashar Assad, the newspaper reports. The weapons include anti-tank missiles, which may be handed over to the Syrian rebels.

The CIA was chosen to deliver arms to the Syrian revels to limit public disclosures and restrict oversight to a small group of lawmakers, who would oversee the clandestine operation, the report explains.

Other countries may join the US program for arming the rebels. Washington is in talks with France about pre-positioning European-procured weapons in Jordan. Saudi Arabia is expected to provide some portable anti-aircraft weapons as well, the WSJ says.

The weapons are meant for Syrian rebels trained by US instructors, the report says. The CIA says it has an “elaborate” vetting system, which will supposedly prevent the American-trained and armed fighters from joining jihadist forces among the anti-Assad troops. The agency may co-opt aid from the US special operations forces and similar units in other countries like Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to train the rebels, the report says.

Up to several hundred troops may be sent into Syrian territory every month under the program, the newspaper says, citing diplomatic sources. The rebel troops will be deployed starting early August and will need four to five months before making “a meaningful difference” in the Syrian civil war, unnamed US officials told WSJ.

Earlier media reports said the CIA played an important part in funneling weapons, which countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been smuggling to Syrian rebels for more than a year. The participation was expected to prevent the arms from ending in the hands of Al-Qaeda-linked militants fighting in Syria.

A Free Syrian Army fighter cleans his weapons.(Reuters / Muzaffar Salman)

  The Obama administration announced plans to provide military support to rebel forces this month after accusing the Assad government of using chemical weapons against rebel forces. Earlier, similar allegations came from France and UK. The UN and several nations, including Russia, said the evidence of the alleged chemical attacks by the Syria army, which the US showed them, was inconclusive.

Two separate reports on the issue sent to the UN by the US and Britain described 10 cases of suspected use of chemical weapons in Syria, a UN diplomat told AP on Wednesday. The US accuses Damascus of being behind at least two of those, according to a letter sent by US envoy to the UN Susan Rice to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The US and Russia are engaged in a joint effort to arrange a peace conference in Geneva, with hopes of paving the way for a political solution to the Syrian crisis. The conference is meant to gather all parties with stakes in the conflict to agree on a way to end the bloodshed, which has already claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.

The effort however is stalled by a number of obstacles, including the differences over who should get invited. Damascus objected to Saudi Arabia’s participation, while some of the organizers stood against inviting Syria’s ally Iran. There is no unity among the opposition forces over their participation and representation.

Amid the ongoing organizational problems, the planned date of the conference has been postponed several times. UN peace envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said Tuesday he didn’t expect the meeting to happen before August.

After the US announced plans for arming Syrian rebels, Moscow, Washington’s partner in organizing the peace conference, said the move didn’t help their joint effort.

Members of the Free Syrian Army walk down the stairs holding their weapons in Aleppo's Salaheddine district.(Reuters / Hamid Khatib)

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, announced his party’s entry into the Syrian conflict on May 25, 2013. The Syrian National Coalition immediately denounced Hezbollah while the US Department of State reacted to Nasrallah’s announcement on May 29 by demanding an immediate withdrawal of Hezbollah’s fighters from Syria. The rubber stamp Arab League would eventually, and very predictability, condemn Hezbollah’s entry into the Syrian conflict, whereas it has ignored the involvement of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and their allies. 

Qusayr, situated on the road between Damascus and the Mediterranean coastline of Syria in the northwestern portion of the Syrian Governate of Homs, would become a central focus of Hezbollah’s involvement inside Syria. After the victory in Qusayr, the war hawk Charles Krauthammer would embarrassingly proclaim that the US was hesitating too much while Russia and Iran were taking charge of the situation in Syria with Hezbollah.

The US had not hesitated in reality, but had failed to topple the government in Damascus. Most probably prompted by the pressure of their Saudi and Qatar paymasters, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government would react to the victory in Qusayr by cutting its ties with Syria, calling for a no-fly zone, and attacking Hezbollah for its involvement in the Syrian conflict. As an indicator of the failure of its regime change project, the Obama Administration would leak to the press that it was considering a no-fly zone too. Ironically, Egypt’s President Morsi and many of the same people that criticize Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia for their involvement in Syria refuse to criticize Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, British, French, Jordanian, Israeli, and American involvement.

Undoubtedly Hezbollah did discuss its intentions to enter the Syrian conflict with its patrons in Tehran and coordinated with Iran and then, to a lesser extent, with Russia through Iranian officials and through consultations with Aleksandr Zasypkin, Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon, and then Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov during his April 2013 visit to Beirut. The involvement of Hezbollah in Syria, however, is purely defensive. Moreover, Hezbollah is one of the last external players to be involved in Syria.

It is the same type of reports that constantly claim there is a substantial Iranian military presence in Syria, but can never manage to give solid proof or any form of confirmation about their claims, that are the ones that simplistically de-contextualize Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria. For example, rockets were launched into Dahiyeh, the working class southern suburb of Beirut that is the political stronghold of Hezbollah in Lebanon’s capital district, and the town of Hermel, in Bekaa, hours after Nasrallah announced his party would enter the Syrian conflict.

Most reports about this failed to recognize the nature of the rocket attacks. The rocket strikes were more than a mere warning from the anti-government forces inside Syria, in fact they were part of a steady stream of escalation that deliberately aimed at expanding the war into Lebanon and spreading the fires of sedition. Attacks were being conducted in areas inhabited by Hezbollah supporters much earlier and before Hezbollah even intervened in Syria. Whether it is done intentionally or unintentionally, this type of reporting conceals the fact that Hezbollah intervened in Syria mainly to protect itself and Lebanon’s diverse population, and it fails to identify who the real perpetrators of the violence are. The mainstream media in places like the US and UK also fails to mention that key divisions of the anti-government forces inside Syria have sworn to kill all the Shiite Muslims they get their hands on, and to march straight into Lebanon after Syria. 

Syrians and Lebanese wave Syria's former independence flag which has been adopted by the rebels forces fighting agianst Syrian pro-government forces in Syria, and the green Sunni Muslim Jamaa Islamiya flag as they gather in the main sports stadium in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on June 9, 2013 in solidarity with the Syrian central city of Qusayr which fell to government forces, aided by Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters, earlier in the week. (AFP Photo)

 From the beginning of the Syrian conflict Hezbollah agreed that the Syrian people should have the democratic freedoms that Hezbollah itself enjoys in Lebanon and it has agreed that Syria is in need of political reforms. Its entry into the Syrian conflict is aimed at preventing the takfiri death squads that have amassed in Syria from marching against Lebanon and committing the same type of crimes in the towns and homes of the Lebanese people they have been committing against the Syrian people. Because the takfiris have announced that they will purge the Levant of the Shiite Muslims and all others that they do not accept, the conflict was unavoidable. Rather than wait, Hezbollah chose to act in a war that the anti-government forces in Syria deliberately initiated against Hezbollah through a stream of assaults on the Shiites living on the Lebanese-Syrian border. As a preview of what is in store for the Shiites, after their defeat in Qusayr, the anti-government militias marched into Hatla and massacred many of its residents, including old people and young children who all had their throats slit. One video of the massacre titled “The storming and cleansing of Hatla” surfaced with the man filming it stating that all the Shia Muslims would suffer the same fate. What happened in Hatla, including stories about vicious rapes and mutilations, has only strengthened the support in Lebanon for Hezbollah’s intervention.

Hezbollah is protecting Lebanon and the Levant’s minority groups

On July 14, Nasrallah went on Lebanese television to say that Hezbollah was fighting to defend both the people of Lebanon and Syria from the abominations of “an American, Israeli and takfiri project to destroy not only Syria but the entire region.” Speaking on Al-Manar, he told his supporters and allies that the entire world had gone to Syria to fight in one way or another using their money or shipping weapons or through media warfare. It was only natural for Hezbollah as one of the main targets of the war to get involved. He added that the Lebanese government had unfortunately failed to protect the 30,000 Lebanese Christians and Muslims that have been attacked by the Syrian anti-government forces on their borders. Hezbollah acted to protect them. Nasrallah’s sentiments are widely shared inside and outside Lebanon.  According to Mohsen Saleh, a professor of political philosophy at the Lebanese University and an expert on Hezbollah, the threat of “takfirism” is now working to terminate all diversity in the region in league with Israel and the US. The Muslim Brotherhood is tied to this project too, but “it is now collapsing and in a state of decay” according to Saleh. “The Brotherhood came into power a hundred years too late,” he told me. While visiting him at his office, he explained that all of Lebanon’s different communities are afraid of the takfiris as they have witnessed their crimes in Syria. This is why the Maronite Catholic Church and the multitude of Christian denominations in Lebanon are increasingly standing behind Hezbollah. He confidently said that all of Lebanon’s different sects will improve their relations with Hezbollah due to the mutual threat they all face. When I asked Saleh about Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate, who is linked to Hezbollah’s rivals in Lebanon, he pointed out that Tamman Saeb Salam is not a puppet. In a discreet gesture of support distinguishing him from the Hariri camp, Tamman has said that Hezbollah will remain a resistance group no matter what happens due to its intervention in Syria.

Sunni Muslim gunmen roam the streets and block roads with burning tires, expressing their solidarity with Salafist leader Ahmad al-Assir in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, June 23, 2013. (Reuters)

 The Druze community, which is the Lebanese group that is the most vulnerable to a takfiri attack on the country, is reconsidering its relationship with Hezbollah. The Druze community is also unhappy about the statements of Walid Jumblatt, its prime chieftain, which have been supportive of anti-government activities in Syria. Trying to please his Saudi paymaster in Riyadh, Jumblatt has gone as far as to say that he personally supports the Saudi-backed Jubhat Al-Nusra. Well aware of the dangers to their community, the Druze of Syria have shunned Jumblatt and continued to support the Syrian government. Russian officials have also supported Hezbollah’s stance, Moscow views Hezbollah’s position as one that aims to protect the different people of Lebanon and Syria. Moscow does not want the takfiri brigades to enter the North Caucasus or to attack any of its sister-republics and allies in Central Asia. As opposed to the United States and its allies, Russian foreign policy in the Middle East openly promotes diversity and the protection of Christians and minority groups.

Unlike Hezbollah, the US Does Not Give a Damn about Arab Christians

Dr. Naji Hayek, a Lebanese Christian, sums it all up by stating: “Hezbollah is fighting for us, for me!”  He made the statement after we watched Michel Aoun live on Orange TV declaring that he supported Hezbollah after fighting erupted in the Lebanese city of Sidon. If the takfiris make inroads into Lebanon, he assured me that he would pick up his gun and fight too. Hayek, a surgeon, a professor at the Lebanese American University, and an advisor to Michel Aoun - the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, the largest Christian political party in Lebanon—helped draft the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act and used to submit intelligence reports about Syrian activities in Lebanon to the US Senate. He was once a member of Lebanon’s National Liberal Party and a close friend of Samir Geagea, the Christian warlord extraordinaire allied to the US and Saudi Arabia. Hayek was even injured while fighting against the Syrians for Michel Aoun.

A man carries a placard bearing the portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, during a gathering to celebrate the capture of the city of Qusayr by Syrian pro-government forces, in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, on June 6, 2013. (AFP Photo)

Things have changes since then and new alliances have formed. Syria is an enemy no longer and Samir Geagea is no longer a friend. Hayek told me bitterly that the US has never hesitated to manipulate and then drop the Christians in Lebanon. He even showed me a heated email exchange between him and Jeffrey Feltman, while Feltman was serving as a US assistant-secretary in the US  State Department, where Feltman in reference to Hezbollah accused the Free Patriotic Movement of being aligned with “evil.” In retrospect, Hayek realizes that the US had different motives when the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act was drafted. Furiously, he talked about “the twenty-five year old kids working at the Lebanon Desk in the [US] State Department with [Bachelor of Arts] in history” that are disconnected from reality in the Middle East which he has had to deal with.

“I am not a fan of Bashar Al-Assad, but I support him one hundred percent, because the alternative in Syria is an extremist government,” Hayek emphasized. Should the Syrian government fall, Hayek’s fear was that the corrupt Hariri family and the March 14 Alliance would invite a Muslim Brotherhood government in Damascus to invade and occupy Lebanon. As a key interlocutor between Michel Aoun and the United States, he explained to me that the Hariri family had no problem with the Syrian presence in Lebanon and in fact they were opposed to a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and would obstruct his work in the United States. He explained that the reason for this was that the Hariris used the Syrian military to enforce their hegemony in Lebanon. “Hariri corrupted the Syrians,” he explained. The Hariri clan would bribe all the high ranking Syrian officers in Lebanon by paying them millions of dollars. The problems between the Hariris and Syria began when Bashar Al-Assad wanted to put an end to corruption in Syria and refused to let the Hariris continue with their game.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Twelve US-based brigades will be deactivated by 2017 to fit a slashed military budget. Despite cuts of over 80,000 troops, top brass assures that combat readiness will not suffer because the remaining brigades will have more battalions and firepower.

Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno announced Tuesday plans have been approved to inactivate 10 Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) with headquarters on the US territory. This comes under the $487 billion military budget cuts mandated in 2011 by the Budget Control Act, a fourth round of military budget cuts since President Barack Obama entered office.

It has been announced that the final cut of the service in five years is expected to be 80,000 service personnel, most of which is to come through attrition, Orieno said giving the difference from a wartime high of 570,000 soldiers to 490,000 by the end of 2017.

Overall drop in the number of BCT will be from current 45 to 33, as the US Army plans to return to about the same number of enlisted servicemen it had before the Iraq war started, it was announced at General Odierno’s press conference. 

A standard American infantry BCT currently has roughly 3,500 servicemen. The announced cuts, which are mainly to affect the active-duty force, could also be regarded as reorganization of the military, which has been conducting wars for the last 12 years. The Army Reserve will remain at 205,000 soldiers and the state-based National Guard militia will lose 8,000 soldiers, dropping to 350,000 from 358,000. 

‘Increasing tooth-to-tail ratio’

General Odierno explained that whereas the number of BCT is decreasing, the number of battalions in them will grow from present two to three thus increasing the Army’s “tooth-to-tail ratio.” Besides an additional battalion, which is usually 600-800 soldiers, BCTs will have more engineers assigned. It is expected that remaining brigades would be somewhere close to 5,000 personnel instead of the today’s 3,500 servicemen and women.

 “We will add a third maneuver battalion and additional engineer and fires capability to each of our armor and infantry brigade combat teams in order to make them more lethal, more flexible and more agile,” Odierno said. 

Reportedly, the decision to beef up the number of servicemen in a BTC came as a recommendation from commanders with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. In their view personnel proliferation will extend fighting capabilities of the brigades on a battlefield. In this way the impact on combat power will be minimized and the savings will be made at the expense of support units outside of BCT and logistics. 

 General Ray Odierno insists the cuts were thoroughly calculated after thousands of hours of planning, personnel interviews and simulated combat tests. Naturally, because the brigades are slashed for economic reasons, the final selection was based on cost and logistic effectiveness, required training resources, ranges, airspace and infrastructure, as well as local economic impacts once BCTs are gone, Odierno said.

“I know in the local communities it will have its impact,” Odierno told reporters on Tuesday. “But we've done our best to reach out to them so they understand what the impacts are. We've tried to make it as small an impact as possible for as many communities as we could,” he said.

The deactivation of 10 BCTs comes as the first round of military reduction, because if the Congress does not reconsider austerity in military spending, the number of service personnel will be reduced even lower than the planned 490,000 troops.

A member of the Armed Services Committee, Democrat US Congressman Adam Smith warned that, “The real hazard to military effectiveness will persist as long as Congress fails to act on sequestration. If sequestration is not removed, then more extensive force structure changes will need to be made.”

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Howard P. McKeon, promised his panel “will carefully examine the implications of this initial restructuring, but we all must understand that this is only the tip of the iceberg, much deeper cuts are still to come.”

Whether they will be accompanied by same ‘tooth-to-tail ratio increases’ remains to be seen. 

BCT Reduction by military installation

Fort Bliss, Texas – infantry BCT

Fort Bragg, North Carolina – airborne infantry BCT

Fort Campbell, Kentucky – infantry BCT

Fort Carson, Colorado – armor BCT

Fort Drum, New York – infantry BCT

Fort Hood, Texas – armor BCT

Fort Knox, Kentucky – infantry BCT

Fort Riley, Kansas – infantry BCT

Fort Stewart, Georgia – armor BCT

Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington – Stryker BCT 

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister says all personnel had been evacuated from the navy resupply base in Tartus, Syria, adding that not a single Russian military serviceman remained in the country.

Mikhail Bogdanov made the announcement in an interview with the Al-Hayat newspaper. “Presently, the Russian Defense Ministry has not a single person stationed in Syria. The base does not have any strategic military importance,” the newspaper quoted the Russian official as saying.

Russian media have verified the statement and the business daily Vedomosti quoted an unnamed source in the Defense Ministry as saying that this was true as all military and civilian personnel had been evacuated from the Tartus base and there were no Russian military instructors working with the Syrian military forces. The source added that the withdrawal was prompted not only by the increased risks caused by the ongoing military conflict, but also by the fact that in the current conditions any incident involving Russian servicemen would likely have some unfavorable reaction from the international community.

Russia currently has a 16-ship flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea but none of them has called at the port of Tartus in recent months and there were no reports of such plans.

Mikhail Bogdanov is also Russian President’s plenipotentiary for Middle East issues and he headed the Russian delegation at this week’s talks between Russia, US and UN on preparations of the major international conference on Syria, dubbed Geneva-2.

Following the Tuesday round of talks another Russian diplomat – Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadiy Gatilov – told reporters that the sides failed to agree on a number of questions and the terms of the future conference were not yet agreed. In particular, the participants of the talks varied on Iran’s possible role in the future conference.

Moscow supports Tehran’s participation in talks as it would make a positive contribution to the possible political settlement in Syria, the Russian official noted.

Besides, the participation of some of the Syrian opposition groups remains under question though the US side said they were working on this, Gatilov added.

The Russian diplomat said that the supplies of weapons to the Syrian opposition were not discussed at Tuesday's talks, though he noted that this issue “was not creating positive political environment for the start of the political process.”

Gatilov said that Russia still hoped the plan to call the international conference would end in success. In particular, the issue will be discussed at the forthcoming meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US State Secretary John Kerry, due soon within the framework of the ASEAN conference in Brunei.

Hamid Karzai (AFP Photo / Shah Marai)

 Hamid Karzai is unlikely to remain president of Afghanistan after US troops leave the country, defense consultant Moeen Raoof told RT. The Taliban, a longtime enemy of the US-backed Karzai administration, is expected to regain control after 11 years.

RT: The US State Department is hesitating to define the Taliban’s current status - whether it is a terrorist group, a political force, or both. Why is it so reticent?

Moeen Raoof: I don’t think they are dealing with the actual Taliban, because Mullah Omar has not endorsed the starting up of the office in Doha. So the Americans are not sure who they are dealing with, and if they are dealing with the Taliban, it’s probably Taliban light. Mullah Omar is a very powerful person, and he has to sign off on these kinds of peace talks. And Secretary Kerry seems to be stumbling all the time. He is stumbling with the peace talks in Syria, and all of a sudden there is confusion about the peace talks in Doha, Qatar. So I’m not sure that they are really talking to the Taliban directly.

RT: What about the current government in Afghanistan? How strong is it?

MR: President Karzai hasn’t got a chance in hell to remain in power once US forces would leave in 2014. Let’s go back to President Najibullah – he was forcibly removed from the UN offices and he was massacred in the streets and hung up…I think that if Karzai is a wise man, he would leave with the US forces. But given that US forces are planning to remain in Afghanistan, maybe that gives him some leeway to remain in power for a while.

RT: What if Karzai did leave? Who would take over the leadership of Afghanistan?

MR: Well, the Taliban is going to move in. They have stated that they are going to move in and protect the country. This has been their policy for a long time…They are going to take back power and protect the country. They are very fundamentalist about this viewpoint.

 RT: If the Taliban is to take control of Afghanistan, will more than a decade of death and destruction have been a waste of time?

MR: Yes, completely. Remember the 9/11 attacks were done by a Saudi Arabian, and they [the US] went and attacked Afghanistan. Why did they not go and attack Saudi Arabia? The strategy to attack Afghanistan was completely flawed. They didn’t think this through. They’d go after one man and destroy a whole nation. It was a flawed policy by the Pentagon and the US administration. So yes, the Taliban is going to move in and take over power. And Mullah Omar has not stated that he endorses these peace talks, because [the Taliban] does not operate and does not want any external interference in the affairs of the nation.

RT: The Taliban has opened a “political office” in Qatar. If it eventually takes over in Afghanistan, will the world be forced to recognize it as a legitimate government?

MR: They have no choice. Who are these representatives in Doha? Are they representing Mullah Omar or the Taliban high command? We don’t know. We don’t have the answers for that.

RT: Do people in Afghanistan really want the Taliban government?

MR: Well, it’s not everyone’s preference, no.

"We are not able to say who has used chemical agents or chemical weapons and we are very worried about the chain of custody of the substances," Pinheiro told reporters after an informal meeting with UN Security Council ambassadors.

UN experts investigating the use of chemical weapons say they need to access Syria to determine where the alleged chemical weapons have been used. But Syria has thus far refused to grant them entry, citing concerns for their safety and doubts about their impartiality, as neither China nor Russia were allowed to participate.

Pinheiro's commission said in a report published this month that there were "reasonable grounds to believe that chemical agents have been used as weapons".

"Allegations have been received concerning the use of chemical weapons by both parties," said the commission, adding that "the majority concern their use by government forces."

Pinheiro believes that a "diplomatic surge" is needed to resolve the long-standing conflict, which has left more than 93,000 dead, according to UN figures.

However, just before foreign ministers from the "Friends of Syria" group met in Doha on Saturday, the main armed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), told the AFP that it had new weapons that could beat President Bashar Assad's regime.

  "We have begun distributing them on the front lines, they will be in the hands of professional officers and FSA fighters," he said.

These reports come after the US decided to arm the Syrian rebels, which reportedly sparked feuds among various rebel factions dominated by radical Islamist fighters.

President Barack Obama said on Friday that the US will leave about 700 combat-equipped troops in Jordan after a training exercise there, which would increase the number of US troops stationed there to almost 1,000. The US announced earlier that it will leave Patriot missiles and warplanes in the country.

The Qatari foreign minister supported and encouraged the idea of arming the Syrian opposition fighters during the foreign ministers’ meeting in Doha.

The EU lifted its arms embargo on Syria last month, and the UK and France spoke favorably about arming the rebels, though no decisions have been due to increasing concerns about the Islamist element within the Syrian rebel forces.
Risks of arming Syria

There are fears that a power struggle may be brewing in the rebels’ ranks, with fighters from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front reportedly assassinating a large number of officers of the Free Syrian Army.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West against arming Syrian rebel forces, which he said included "terrorist" groups.

He reiterated that weapon supplies to the Syrian rebels would violate international law and threaten to further destabilize the war-torn state.

"Why supply weapons to militant forces in Syria when we are not sure of the composition of these groups?” he said Friday at the Economic Forum, adding that it remains unclear where these arms will end up.

"If the United States ... recognizes one of the key Syrian opposition organizations, al-Nusra, as terrorist ... how can one deliver arms to those opposition members? … Where will (those weapons) end up? What role will they play?" Putin said, arguing that a quick exit by President Bashar Assad would create a dangerous power vacuum.

Earlier on Friday, Pinheiro warned that sending more weapons into Syria would lead to more war crimes. "States that provide arms have responsibilities in terms of the eventual use of those arms to commit ... war crimes or crimes against humanity," Pinheiro said.

Putin also defended Russia’s contract to deliver advanced S-300 long-range air defense systems to Damascus, saying that Moscow maintains that all arms supplies to Syria are being carried out under a contract signed with the country several years ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (RIA Novosti)

Putin has supported Pinheiro’s idea of a “diplomatic surge”, and insisted that an international peace conference is the right way to proceed to solve the Syrian conflict, referring to the earlier proposed peace conference in Geneva on June 25.

But the conference has been continually postponed. After the clash of G8 leaders with Russia over the nature of transitional government, the conference may be delayed until late August or early September. 

With a massive stockpile of loosely-supervised Gaddafi-era weapons, Libya resurfaces as a key player in the Syrian conflict, with more reports emerging that rebels get material through official and rogue channels, despite UN condemnation.

“It is just the enthusiasm of the Libyan people helping the Syrians,” explained Fawzi Bukatef, a former revolutionary commander, who has recently been appointed as ambassador to Uganda, to the New York Times.

According to the paper, Qatari C-17 cargo planes – capable of carrying a payload of more than 70 tons – have landed at least three times in Libya this year, each time to pick up a shipment of weapons that were then taken the Turkish-Syrian border, and passed onto the rebels.

Earlier this week, British-Libyan arms dealer Abdul Basit Haroun boasted to Reuters that weapons reach Syria not only by numerous charted flights, but also on ships – concealed among humanitarian aid.

The process is not controlled by the weak central government; instead, a handful of opportunistic middlemen have emerged.

"The authorities know we are sending guns to Syria," Haroun said. "Everyone knows."

Libyan assembly member Tawfiq Shehabi said the government tacitly supports the activities of dealers like Haroun, himself a brigade commander during the successful uprising against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

"After the end of the war of liberation, he became involved in supporting the Syrian revolution... sending aid and weapons to the Syrian people," said Shehabi. "He does a good job of supporting the Syrian revolution."

Kornets anti-tank missiles

  Haroun and others insisted that they work according to an “above-board” scheme, whereby rebels initially approach the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the moderate wing of the rebellion against President Bashar Assad, which then asks Turkey, the gateway for the majority of weapons, to sanction a shipment.

Once shipments – which initially comprised mostly light weapons, but have more recently included Soviet-era Kornets anti-tank missiles, and Konkurs-M guided rockets – arrive in Turkey, they are then distributed among the assorted rebel units.

As the rebels do not fight under a single command, pre-agreed formulas are used to make sure that various brigades are armed proportionally to their manpower and needs, according to Safi Asafi, a coordinator commander on the border who spoke to the New York Times.

Asafi said that the weapons were not officially distributed to “blacklisted” groups, such as the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, but that this was merely a formality, with the extremist Islamists simply purchasing the weapons from the “approved” units.

A report by Time magazine at the end of last month showed that weapons trafficking is not restricted to the semi-official channels, with shadowy backers driven by ideology, religion and profit managing to set up separate deals.

The piece detailed a negotiation between a former Libyan anti-Gaddafi fighter, and a group of leading Islamic organizations fighting Assad. The Islamists said that they did not recognize the authority of the FSA, and described their commanders as “corrupt failures”.

The people involved described the talks – conducted in a hotel on the Turkish side of the Syrian border – as a routine, and everyday occurrence, as volunteers, mercenaries and arms dealers congregate in several border towns.

Restrictions on official weapons supplies to rebels by their sympathizers in the West and the Arab world have been in place for most of the past two years, and have made it almost inevitable that a haphazard weapons trade would boom around the conflict that is estimated to have taken more than 90,000 lives the UN estimates.

Nonetheless, the United Nations has severely criticized Libya for proliferating weapons at “an alarming rate”.

A report released in April said that Libya, whose substantial stockpile is largely controlled by tribal militias and even private citizens, is “enriching the arsenals of a range of non-State actors, including terrorist groups.”

It is unclear if the torrent of badly-controlled shipments will be stemmed, now that most Syrian allies have lifted their weapons supply restrictions, or if the trade will move to arm those not catered for by official channels. 

  The US decision to arm the Syrian rebels fighting government troops has sparked feuds among various rebel factions dominated by radical Islamist fighters. RT contributor Afshin Rattansi warns against the move, as internal schisms among the rebels deepen.

A power struggle may also be brewing in the rebels’ ranks: Fighters from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front have reportedly assassinated a large number of officers of the Free Syrian Army.

RT: The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front is now said to be targeting Free Syrian Army (FSA), but these two share a common goal – to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Is there some sort of power struggle we are seeing within the rebel ranks?

Afshin Rattansi: The rebel ranks were in Istanbul recently, where they could make no type of agreement between themselves. Now they are actually killing each other. This power struggle has been going on for months and months.

And presumably President Obama and the NATO powers are saying that they will give weapons to the Free Syrian Army. Well, if Al-Nusra Front is murdering members of the Free Syrian Army, then presume they take some of those arms and use them. Disunity in the rebel ranks is high, and is now extending to attacking Kurds in the northern part of Syria.

RT: Reports say that many FSA fighters are leaving more modern brigades for hard-line groups. What are the dangers of that, and why are they doing it?

AF: The dangers are everywhere to be seen in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon, as the Al-Nusra Front becomes the lead faction in the opposition. No amount of arming the so-called ‘moderate rebels’ is going to work against the hundreds or thousands, millions or billions – we don’t know – coming from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the American allies in the Persian Gulf.

So, the dangers are everywhere to be seen. Another danger is the blowback that is occurring even now, with some of those militants returning to their home countries in Europe and perhaps to the US to fight their jihad on European and American soil.

RT: Any clearer about who or what is actually making up the FSA?

AF: The Free Syrian army seems to have deposed some of the initial leaders, but rather like the pre-Iraq-War time, we don’t really know. It isn’t stopping the Americans. They seem to know exactly who the Free Syrian Army is, and they have 2,000 marines over the Jordanian border putting in Patriot missiles and getting ready for war. They were flying F-16s over the past 48 hours.

France does not seem to know who the FSA is either, as Paris is saying “no more arms, no more weapons, until we find out who the personnel really are in this rebel movement.”

RT: What is the right way forward here with the rebels calling on Western backers to send in weapons?

AF: The right way of going about it in Syria is keeping money on the humanitarian groups that are going to help the refugees. The US should be bombing Syria not with weapons, but with airlifts of medicine and urgent medical care for all of these millions of refugees.

Syria already had a refugee crisis in the fallout of the Iraq war, and it has its own one now. So the way forward is to pour humanitarian aid into the country, and of course get those talks going in Geneva. Hopefully, all sides will be talking soon without the preconditions of this loose coalition of rebels.

A powerful explosion has gone off at a military airport on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus, according to witness reports and local media.

State-owned al-Ikhbariya Television  said the explosion "resulted from an attempt to target the Mezze military airport." It has been relating witness testimonies of the blast that was heard throughout most of western Damascus on Sunday.

It took place in the Mezzeh district that is also home to several embassies.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that approximately 20 of President Bashar Assad's forces have either been killed or wounded.

They reported the source of the blast to be a car bomb detonated at a checkpoint near the airport, which also serves as one of the major government elite force bases. It is often used for transporting supplies and performing military operations against rebels, as well as being a private airport for the Assad family.

Video footage captured by witnesses allegedly showed smoke and flames rising from the area, as  ambulances were seen rushing to the scene.