Free Syrian Army soldiers.
Photograph courtesy of RevolutionSyria/صفحة الثورة السورية
After months of talking about “red lines”, the US has announced that they will supply direct military aid to the Syrian opposition after they concluded Assad is using chemical weapons against the Syrian people.
This announcement from the US is something which the Surian rebels have regularly been calling for over the last few months as the Russians and Iranians continue to supply arms to the Assad regime, and the flood of Hezbollah fighters into the country in support of Assad continues to rise. These external actors have tilted the balance of the conflict in recent weeks, with the recapture of Qusair from rebel hands by Hezbollah fighters directed by the Syrian military a notable example.
NATO Secretary General Ander Fogh Rasmussen welcomed this “clear” message from the Obama administration, although the White House has not announced what this military aid might entail. It is likely to include small arms and ammunition, but the rebels have been calling for anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons in order to rebalance the scales in their fight against a well funded military. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the US are also considering creating a no-fly zone over part of the country, possibly the border with Jordan, in order to provide a safer passage for refugees and to protect possible rebel training camps in the area.
This announcement from the White House came on the same day as UN Human Rights Office analysis showed that more than 93,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far, with currently around 5,000 people killed per month. On Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said:
The constant flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels – with more than 5,000 killings documented every month since last July, including a total of just under 27,000 new killings since 1 December. Unfortunately, as the study indicates, this is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher.
