S. Arabia, Qatar, US Seeking to Widen Support for Syrian Militants through Salafi Lebanese

Saudi, Qatari and the US intelligence officers have contacted Salafi leaders in Northern Lebanon to discuss better collaboration on the exacerbation of crisis in Syria.
“Certain sources have reported that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have contacted the Salafi groups in Tripoli in Northern Lebanon and the Takfiri agents in the country who send weapons and munitions to the al-Nusrah Front in Syria through borders,” Yemen’s al-Hadas news website said on Tuesday.

It also said that the US, Saudi and Qatari spy agencies are trying to accelerate the dispatch of Salafi terrorists from Jordan to Syria and al-Qaeda terrorists from North Africa to the Gaza Strip and Turkey and then to the Syrian territories to further increase unrests and insecurity in the country.

According to a Monday report by the US media, Saudi Arabia has struck a deal with the US over the purchase of a huge cargo of anti-tank missiles and Riyadh plans to send the hi-tech military weapons to militant groups in Syria.

“No one is expecting a tank invasion of Saudi Arabia anytime soon, but the kingdom just put in a huge order for US-made anti-tank missiles that has Saudi-watchers scratching their heads and wondering whether the deal is related to Riyadh’s support for the Syrian rebels,” David Kenner said in an article released by the US think-tank, Foreign Policy.

“The proposed weapons deal, which the Pentagon notified Congress of in early December, would provide Riyadh with more than 15,000 Raytheon anti-tank missiles at a cost of over $1 billion,” he added.

Kenner then asks why Saudi Arabia should pay such huge amount of money for anti-tank missiles, while it is not facing an imminent threat of war from its neighbors or any other country.

“But one Saudi ally could desperately use anti-tank weapons — the Syrian rebels,” he says.

Kenner further points to the history of the Saudi aid to the rebels in Syria, reminding that “it previously purchased anti-tank weapons from Croatia and funneled them to anti-Assad fighters, and it is now training and arming Syrian rebels in Jordan”.

“Charles Lister, a London-based terrorism and insurgency analyst, said that rebels have also received as many as 100 Chinese HJ-8 anti-tank missiles from across the border with Jordan — and indeed, many videos show Syrian rebels using this weapon against Bashar al-Assad’s tanks,” he added.

“But while the latest American anti-tank weapons might not be showing up in Aleppo anytime soon, that doesn’t mean the deal is totally disconnected from Saudi efforts to arm the Syrian rebels. What may be happening, analysts say, is that the Saudis are sending their stockpiles of anti-tank weapons bought from elsewhere to Syria and are purchasing US missiles to replenish their own stockpiles,” Kenner said.

“I would speculate that with an order of this size, the Saudis were flushing their current stocks in the direction of the opposition and replacing them with new munitions,” said Charles Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Kenner added that purchasing weapons is not the main strategy behind the deal, and Saudi princes want at same time to pretend that they are the America’s main ally in the region, in a situation that they fear US-Iran thaw could undermine their power.

“There was a (Washington) lobbyist who used to say, ‘When you buy US weapons, you’re not just buying the weapon — you’re buying a relationship with the United States,’” said William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.