The United States plans to provide medical supplies and food to Syrian
fighters, a policy shift to directly help those battling President
Bashar al-Assad's forces on the ground, sources familiar with the matter
said. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the
United States continues to oppose providing lethal assistance and said
it also will not provide such items as bullet-proof vests, armored
personnel vehicles and military training for now. One source said the
United States was also expected to announce a large increase in
assistance to the Syrian National Coalition, the main civilian
opposition group. The announcements could come as early as Thursday
in Rome, where US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet coalition
members at a "Friends of Syria" meeting of mostly European and Arab
nations supporting the opposition. The steps would reflect a US
desire to do more to help the opposition in the conflict, in which an
estimated 70,000 people have died since protests against Assad erupted
nearly two years ago, while stopping far short of a full-blown military
intervention, for which Washington appears to have no appetite. The
moves, however, might not satisfy some members of the Syrian National
Coalition, which last week said it would boycott the conference out of
frustration at not receiving more assistance and only agreed to come on
Monday. Coalition source dismissive A coalition source said the
planned US steps were a continuation of what he described as an American
policy of wanting "no winners, no losers" in the conflict. He said
that what he viewed as the relatively small size of the coalition
delegation in Rome reflected strong expectations that the meeting will
not come up with substantial support. "There is a major current in
the coalition that wanted to send a message that enough is enough and
that the coalition will not go along with whatever the United States has
in mind and (just) say 'thank you,'" the source said. Even if
Washington were to commit to supply weapons, there was no guarantee it
would keep up the supply, the source said. "Here and there, every
once in a while the armed opposition get some decent weapons, but the
supply is so patchy that it renders the weapons useless," he said.
"What is the use of a sophisticated gun for example without a constant
supply of ammunition?" 'Huge debate' in Obama administration The
White House has long resisted providing weaponry to the rebel forces,
arguing there was no way to guarantee the arms might not fall into the
hands of militants who might eventually use them against Western
targets. US officials have said that the US Defense and State
Departments, under former secretary of defense Leon Panetta and former
secretary of state Hillary Clinton, privately recommended that the White
House arm the rebels but were overruled. "It's a huge debate inside
the administration between those that have to deal with Syria on an
everyday basis, the State Department and Department of Defense
particularly, and the White House, which ... until now has vetoed any
kind of outreach to the armed groups," said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank in the
US capital. "Until now we've drawn a very clear policy line away from
armed groups and preferred to deal with civilians, he said, saying he
did not know what the United States would ultimately decide. The
United States has not so far given aid directly to the rebel fighters
and a decision to provide medical supplies and food in the form of Meals
Ready to Eat (MREs), the US army's basic ration, would reverse that
policy. "Why would the policy change now? The answer is because it
will have to. This policy is not succeeding ... Assad is not stepping
down, the post-Assad Syria is not going to be peaceful, democratic and
secular," he added. "So, given this reality, we have to deal with what's
going to come next." Kerry, who took over as US secretary of state
on 1 February, signaled that he wanted the United States to do more,
saying on Monday that "the Syrian opposition is not going to be dangling
in the wind wondering where the support is or if it's coming." The
source who said that the United States was expected to announce a large
increase in assistance to the Syrian National Coalition said the group
would receive substantially more than the rebel fighters, but declined
to divulge either sum. The United States so far has provided more
than $50 million in non-lethal assistance such as communications gear
and governance training to the Syrian civilian opposition, according to a
US State Department fact sheet. The coalition source, however, said
giving the coalition even another $50 million was a pittance compared to
what he said was the $40 million a day in humanitarian aid needed to
meet the basic needs of Syrian refugees and internally displaced
persons. The United States has provided some $365 million in
humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees in countries such as Turkey, Jordan
and Lebanon and for internally displaced people, channeling this money
through non-governmental organizations. A US State Department
spokeswoman declined comment
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