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FP: Syrian Rebels in Turkey Overwhelmed, Suffering Gap with Leadership

FP: Syrian Rebels in Turkey Overwhelmed, Suffering Gap with Leadership
folder_openInternational News access_time11 years ago
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Under the title "Undergunned and Overwhelmed", Foreign Policy Magazine mentions that the Syrian armed opposition suffers frustration after its defeat in Homs and the so-described "lack of weapons on the Turkish border with Syria."
FP: Syrian Rebels in Turkey Overwhelmed, Suffering Gap with Leadership
However, the report reflects a scene in which a Syrian armed man named Fouad buys weapons from a Turkish dealer in one of the camps at the borders.
"I need ammunition," he tells Abu Mohammad, a stocky Turkish weapons dealer sitting impossibly upright on the stiff couch. "I'll pay five and a half." He quotes the price in Turkish liras -- about $3 per bullet.
 
"They're seven each. If you can get them for five and a half, I'll buy them from you," the Turkish dealer stressed.
The Foreign Policy Magazine further denied all Turkish claims that there is no smuggling of arms through the borders.

"It's a seller's market, and professional smugglers like Fouad, a "civilian" who supplies arms to some of the ragtag bands of Syrian rebels in the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) operating just across the border in the governorate of Idlib, have few options," the "FM" correspondent Rania Abouzeid confirms.

She also highlights that "al-Assad's opponents have been buying black-market weapons from the countries bordering their volatile state -- from Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan," pointing out that "money is not a problem for rebels."

In parallel, the report reflects the existence of a gap between the political leader of the Syrian opposition and the armed rebels.
"We ask the National Council and the commander of the Free Army to fulfill their lying promises and to stop serenading the revolutionaries on the ground without sending weapons, because your serenades are killing us," the report quotes the so-called "We Hope to Be Armed" brigade as saying.

"We haven't seen any of the [Syrian] National Council members down here. ... What is Riad al-Assad doing in Turkey anyway? Army commander? He should cross the border, lift people's morale. What is he scared of -- dying?" one of the Syrian rebels who entered Turkey for three days wonders.


Source: Foreign Magazine, Edited by moqawama.org

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