Syrian rebel fighters. (Reuters/Hosam Katan)
Jamie Dettmer and Tim Mak, Daily Beast: Exclusive: Obama Cuts Off Syrian Rebels’ Cash
Even the favored secular militias groomed to fight ISIS have seen their funding cut in half.
Update #1: Covert CIA Mission to Arm Syrian Rebels Goes Awry -- WSJ
Update #2: U.S. foreign policy in Syria is failure -- Doyle McManus, Omaha.com/L.A. Times
WNU Editor: With this cut in funding .... one has to then wonder what will these U.S. soldiers/trainers then do .... US troops heading to Middle East to train Syria rebels (Al Jazeera). Hmmm ... it makes you wonder if the U.S. is about to agree with the Assad regime .... Assad: US plans to train Syria rebels 'illusory' (Daily Star/AFP).
The funding cuts almost perfectly match the numbers of "favored" SFA folks who have gone over to ISIS and al Nusra.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, a humongous reason for former FSA and the like rebels going over to Al Nusra and such is because they run out of ammunition and money and have no choice, if they want to eat and survive against Assad. That's been going on for a long time, well before these cuts. So I think this is just going to speed that up.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably one of Iran's back channel demands for inking the "nuke deal" with the US. To say Putin/Russia is involved would be redundant. I think this will also tie into coming events in the Ukraine (see above).
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