Via Lebanese website Naharnet:
Syrian rebels have recently received new weapons that could “change the course of the battle” against the Syrian regime, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army told Agence France Presse on Friday.
“We’ve received quantities of new types of weapons, including some that we asked for and that we believe will change the course of the battle on the ground,” FSA political and media coordinator Louay Muqdad said.
“We have begun distributing them on the front lines, they will be in the hands of professional officers and FSA fighters,” he said.
He did not specify what weapons had been received or when they had arrived, but added that a new shipment was expecting in coming days and recalled that the rebels had asked for “deterrent weapons.”
This video uploaded today purports to show some of the new weapons (authenticity not verified, of course):
As does this one:
It’s not clear if this has anything to do with the very limited and tentative lifting of an arms embargo and Obama’s pronouncement that Syria had crossed the chemical weapons red line.
Via Michael Weiss at NOW Lebanon, The Awakening Sunni Giant:
Last Friday, King Abdullah cut short his summer vacation in Morocco and flew back to Riyadh not only to meet with his national security advisors but to coordinate a new strategy for winning the war in Syria, one that encompasses a unified regional bloc of Sunni-majority powers now ranged against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime. The Wahhabi kingdom has exhausted its patience with miscarried attempts to resolve the Syria crisis through diplomacy and it will not wait to see the coming battle in Aleppo play out before assuming control of the Syrian rebellion. State-backed regional efforts to bolster moderate Free Syrian Army elements will thus be joined with the fetid call to jihad emanating from clerical quarters in Cairo, Doha, Mecca, and beyond. The mullahs have only themselves to blame. “Nasrallah fucked up,” one well-connected Syrian source told me recently. “He awakened the Sunni giant. The Saudis took Hezbollah’s invasion of Qusayr personally.”
For those of you inclined to send me the Glenn Beck video, there are plenty of videos showing brutality by the pro-Syrian forces. As I said before, Bad or worse in Syria.
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Comments
Someone give the other side some good weapons too. The more these bastards kill each other, the better off the rest of the world will be.
Russia and Iran are spending money to buy Assad weapons.
Hezbollah is fighting and dying for the Assad cause. Russian and Iranian blood may yet spill. Assuming the Iranians haven’t gone into battle.
I think Putin is smart enough to keep his troops in the background.
i second that emotion… inject just enough supplies to keep the fighting going.
we have no side in this fight, but culling the jihadi herd is a boon.
My guess is that they could be talking about shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, like the old Stinger.
There are no good guys in this movie.
The best possible outcome, as Andy and redc1c4 mention, is a long and ongoing war of attrition which draws the attention of islamist radicals of every stripe, consuming blood and treasure to the benefit of neither side.
Let Russia spend some time, money, and political capital in the process, too.
Now, if only the Saudis and Libyans would gang up on the Muslim Bros in Egypt, and Erdogan’s radicals be overthrown in Turkey, there might be a future for the Middle East yet.
All of you guys have missed one important point as far as the US providing weapons.
With the Obama administration, we know that even if both sides are bad, the O will back the worse of the two–or bring in a third party which is pure evil.
Looks like this one might go into overtime.
Abdullah is angry .
Oh me .Oh My.
He really really is.
Abdullah says -Mikey , you write & tell them. I am big boy angry & I won’t let them come to Mecca.
This is shaping up as an arms race. I only regret that many Christians are getting killed just because they are not muslims. Another problem is every time someone is killed some else picks up his weapon, the weapons do not die and many are reported as being shipped from Libya that our goofy leader supplied to overthrow Ghadaffy duck. Those weapons will eventually be turned on the Israelis and Americans as they were in Benghazi no matter who prevails in Syria.
Follow up to what I posted above about the O administration backing the wrong people.
They just announced US troops are being sent to Egypt to stop anti-government protestors. US troops to stop protests against a religious Muslim governmental takeover.
And more troops being sent to Jordan.I am certain they are not being sent to protect the Christians from the bad guys. But to protect the bad guys from any opposition.