PARIS – The Obama administration, in coordination with some European allies, is for the first time considering supplying direct assistance to elements of the Free Syrian Army as they seek to ramp up pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down and end nearly two years of brutal and increasingly deadly violence.
Officials in the United States and Europe said Tuesday the administration is nearing a decision on whether to provide non-lethal assistance to carefully vetted fighters opposed to the Assad regime in addition to what it is already supplying to the political opposition. A decision is expected by Thursday when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend an international conference on Syria in Rome that leaders of the opposition Syrian National Coalition have been persuaded to attend, the officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the shift in strategy has not yet been finalized and still needs to be coordinated with European nations, notably Britain. They are eager to vastly increase the size and scope of assistance for Assad’s foes.
Kerry, who was a cautious proponent of supplying arms to the rebels while he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been consulting with European leaders on how to step up pressure on Assad to leave power. The effort has been as a major focus of his first official trip abroad as America’s top diplomat. On the first two stops on his hectic nine-nation tour of Europe and the Middle East, in London and Berlin, he has sought to assure the Syrian opposition that more help is on the way.
Categories: Americas, Syria, United States
All assistance so far seems to have been ‘indirect’? (or ‘covert’) (CIA, Special Forces, back-up assistance in Turkey etc).
What is actually your opinion concering this war? Are you for Assad or for the Opposition? After the arab spring in which only sharia radicals gained power im for Assad. People dont understand there that democracy is more than free elections and the rule of the majority. It also includes minority rights and the same rights for everyone. As long as these countrys cling to sharia there will be no real progress or revolution. But i dont think that these countrys will understand that soon. More blood will be spoiled, took also centurys in europe in millions of dead people to fight for the ideas of humanity and enlightenment.
Difficult question. Both are destroying the country. Minorities did have some rights under Assad and it is far from certain that they (we) will have these rights under the opposition.