WORLD_ SYRIA_ US, Britain suspend non-lethal aid to north Syria after Islamists seize rebel warehouse

US, Britain suspend non-lethal aid to north Syria after Islamists seize rebel warehouse

ABC NEWS
Updated 1 hour 13 minutes ago


The United States and Britain have suspended non-lethal aid to northern Syria after Islamist fighters seized Western-backed rebel weapons warehouses, highlighting fears that supplies could end up in the wrong hands.


The decision relates to the seizure of opposition army bases at the Bab al-Hawa crossing near the border of Turkey last week.

The Islamic Front, a new group of several Islamist factions, took control of the facilities from the American-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is fighting the regime of president Bashar al-Assad.

The warehouses also contained trucks, food, medical packs and communication equipment including laptops and radios.

The US and Britain have been providing such aid to rebels in Syria's north, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest says that assistance has now been suspended.

"As a result of the situation ... the United States has suspended all further deliveries of non-lethal assistance into northern Syria," he said, adding that humanitarian aid was not affected by the move.

Mr Earnest says the US is consulting with FSA general Salim Idriss and his staff to inventory supplies of American equipment.

Britain meanwhile called for clarification on the situation.

"We have no plans to deliver any equipment while the situation remains so unclear. We will keep this under close review," a spokesman from the British embassy in Ankara said.

The spokesman added: "I ... want to underline that our support to the opposition remains undiminished."

Rebel group calls for 'rethink' on decision

FSA spokesman Louay Meqdad has labelled the moves rushed and mistaken.

"We hope our friends will rethink and wait for a few days when things will be clearer," he said.

Asked whether any FSA stock was missing, he said: "Everything will be clear in the next hours, and we believe the Syrians are good people and we don't believe there was a problem. They are our brothers."

The suspension underlines a crisis for the FSA leadership, which needs international backing to reinforce its credibility and to stop its fighters joining al Qaeda-backed Islamist militants who now dominate the war with Mr Assad.

The seized items belonged to the Syrian Military Council (SMC), which is nominally in charge of the FSA.

The Islamic Front's battlefield success in capturing the stores could undermine SMC assurances to the US that no supplies sent to their fighters would fall into the hands of Islamist brigades.

Five rebel fighters were killed in the clashes at Bab al-Hawa, but it was not clear which side they were on.

The aid announcement does not affect humanitarian support because this is distributed through aid groups and the United Nations.

The first UN relief airlift to Syria from neighbouring Iraq will deliver food and winter supplies to the mostly Kurdish north-east over the next 10 days.

The conflict in Syria began as a popular uprising against the Assad regime and has since descended into civil war.

The two-and-a-half-year unrest has killed more than 100,000 people, driven more than 2 million abroad as refugees and left many millions more dependent on aid.

Reuters

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, world-politics, syrian-arab-republic, united-states
First posted 1 hour 15 minutes ago



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