CIA steps up delivery of arms to Syrian rebels

The CIA has been delivering light machine guns and other small arms to Syrian rebels for several weeks, a development that marks a major escalation of the US role in the civil war.

The agency has also arranged for the Syrian opposition to receive anti-tank weaponry such as rocket-propelled grenades through a third party, presumably one of the Gulf countries that has been arming the rebels, a senior US intelligence official and two former intelligence officials said today.

A rebel commander General Salim Idris told NPR, an American radio syndicator, today that rebels had received no such US aid.

Officials said the aid has been arriving for more than a month, much of it delivered through a third party, which could explain why General Idris does not believe the US delivered the aid.

AP