Officials: Arms shipments rise to Syrian rebels

FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 14, 2012 file photo, a Syrian rebel checks an anti-aircraft weapon, in Maaret Misreen, near Idlib, Syria. America's Arab allies have dramatically stepped up weapon supplies to Syrian rebels in preparation for a push on the capital Damascus, the main stronghold of President Bashar Assad, officials and Western military experts say, with one official saying airlifts to neighboring Jordan and Turkey have doubled the past month. The U.S. and other Western governments are involved to channel the flow toward more secular fighters, they say. The influx appears to be boosting a rebel drive to seize supply routes from the border with Jordan to Damascus. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File)

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Mideast powers opposed to PresidentBashar Assad have dramatically stepped up weapons supplies toSyrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the capital of Damascus, officials and Western military experts said Wednesday.

A carefully prepared covert operation is arming rebels, involvingJordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, with the United States and other Western governments consulting, and all parties hold veto power over where the shipments are directed, according to a senior Arab official whose government is participating. His account was corroborated by a diplomat and two military experts.

The Arab official said the number of arms airlifts has doubled in the past four weeks. He did not provide exact figures on the flights or the size of the cargo. Jordan opened up as a new route for the weapons late last year, amid U.S. worries that arms from Turkey were going to Islamic militants, all four told The Associated Press in separate interviews. Jordan denies helping funnel weapons to the rebels.

The two military experts, who closely follow the traffic, said the weapons include more powerful, Croatian-made anti-tank guns and rockets than the rebels have had before.

The Arab official said there was a "master plan" for the rebels to seize Damascus. He and the diplomat spoke to the AP on condition that their identities and their nationalities not be disclosed because the operation was covert.

"The idea is that the rebels now have the necessary means to advance from different fronts — north from Turkey and south from Jordan — to close in on Damascus to unseat Assad," the Arab official said. He declined to provide details, but said the plan is being prepared in stages and will take "days or weeks" for results.

Rebels have captured suburbs around Damascus but have been largely unable to break into the heavily guarded capital. Instead, they have hit central neighborhoods of the city with increasingly heavy mortar volleys from their positions to the northeast and south.

But rebels in the south are fighting to secure supply lines from the border with Jordan to the capital, and the new influx of weapons from Jordan has fueled the drive, a rebel commander in a southwestern suburb of the capital said. The consensus among the multiple rebel groups was that Damascus is the next objective, he added.

"There is an attempt to secure towns and villages along the international line linking Amman and Damascus. Significant progress is being made. The new weapons come in that context," said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Syrian government reprisal. He said his own fighters on the capital's outskirts had not received any arms from the influx but that he had heard about the new weapons from comrades in the south.

Syria's rebels, who are divided into numerous independent brigades, have long complained that the international community is not providing them with the weaponry needed to oust Assad, drawing out a civil war that in the past two years has killed more than 70,000 people and displaced 3.5 million Syrians, nearly a third of them fleeing into neighboring countries.

But the United States in particular has been wary of arming the rebellion, fearing weapons will go to Islamic extremists who have taken a prominent role in the uprising. Washington says it is only providing non-lethal aid to the rebels. The U.S. involvement in the arms channels opened up by its regional allies is aimed at ensuring the weapons are not going to militants.

The Arab official, the diplomat and the military experts said the material was destined for "secular" fighters not necessarily linked to the Free Syrian Army, the nominal umbrella group for the rebels. Jordan and other Arabs have been critical of the FSA, which they accuse of having failed as an effective or credible force because its elements lack the fighting skills and military prowess.

The four described a system in which Saudi Arabia and Qatar provide the funding for the weapons, while Jordan and Turkey provide the land channels for the shipments to reach the rebels, while all coordinate with the U.S. and other Western governments on the shipments' destinations. All must agree for a shipment to go through. The Arab official said some of the arms are being purchased from Croatia, or from U.S. drawdowns in unspecified European countries. He said other sources were black market arms dealers across Europe and the Mideast.

Jordanian Information Minister Sameeh Maayatah insisted the kingdom was not helping funnel weapons. "Jordan is neither assisting the Assad regime, nor its opponents," he told the AP. Instead, he argued, Jordan wants a "quick political solution" to the Syrian crisis.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry would not confirm weapons transfer through Turkey, saying, "We have no official information to confirm such reports or claims."

Initially, Turkey was the main route for arms smuggled to the rebels when the flow began in early 2012, but Washington was unhappy that some weapons ended up in the hands of militants, the four said in separate interviews with the AP.

Subsequently, Jordan became an additional route, with the first airlift landing there Dec. 13, they said. Jordan insisted that its role remain clandestine so that it would not be at risk of reprisal by Assad's forces or rockets, they said. Jordan borders Syria to the south, and its frontier is within a two-hour drive of Damascus.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in the hands of secular groups. "I will tell you this: There is a very clear ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what goes to the moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them, and the indication is that they are increasing their pressure as a result of that," he said, without elaborating.

Wrapping up a summit in Qatar on Tuesday, Arab states underlined their right to arm the Syrian rebels, noting the growing frustration with Assad's regime and with what is believed to be a supply of weapons flowing to his regime from his main ally, Iran. Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are headed by Sunni Muslim governments seeking the fall of Assad's regime, which is dominated by Syria's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Arab powers in particular are hoping Assad's departure would break the influence in the region of predominantly Shiite Iran and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

In an interview with the AP last week, Jordan's King Abdullah II said Assad's days were numbered, but warned of the risk that Syria might use chemical weapons against its neighbors, including Jordan. Traditionally, Damascus has been suspicious of its smaller southern neighbor, whom it accuses of being a U.S. puppet and a spy for Israel since the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty. Despite the tensions, their common border has remained relatively quiet and open.

The opening of the weapons pipeline through Jordan "provides a fresh approach" to Syrian rebels, said Shashank Joshi, a military expert who has been monitoring the arms flow for two years for Britain's Royal United Services Institute think tank.

"This way opens a new front in southern Syria. It breaks free from connections with Saudi and Lebanese middlemen (in Turkey), while ensuring the weapons get to those rebels with secular, or nationalist ties, rather than the jihadists," he said.

Sweden-based arms trafficking expert Hugh Griffiths, who has been monitoring the arms flow and collecting independent data, said some 3,500 tons of military equipment have been shipped to the rebels since the traffic began in early 2012. He said there were at least 160 airlifts of weapons deliveries from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and later Jordan, with the most recent being a shipment of unspecified material from Qatar to Turkey on Sunday.

"Nothing compares in terms of the intensity of these flights over months-long periods at a time," said Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Two prominent independent researchers monitoring weapons traffic — Eliot Higgins in Britain and Nic Jenzen-Jones in Australia — said Croatian arms began appearing only recently in Syria. They include M60 recoilless guns, M79 Osa rocket launchers, and RBG-6 grenade launchers, which all are powerful anti-tank weapons.

Griffiths said the Croatian arms are a "major game changer." He said they are "portable, but pack a much bigger explosive punch."

The question will be whether the arms influx will tip the balance if rebels do launch an offensive for Damascus — and whether the attempt to boost more moderate rebels over Islamists will be effective.

Syrian opposition activists estimate there are 15-20 different brigades fighting in and around Damascus now, each with up to 150 fighters. Many of them have Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white Islamic flags or al-Qaida-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is also a presence of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic militant groups fighting alongside the rebels. In the Damascus area, the al-Nusra fighters are active mostly in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, but the presence is not as strong as it is in the north and east.

Capt. Islam Alloush, a spokesman for Liwaa al-Islam, a prominent rebel brigade with an Islamist ideology that is operating outside Damascus, denied any arms were being smuggled into southern Syria. "If there are any weapons being brought in, it would be from the north," he said.

Still, he said rebels were gearing up for the battle for Damascus. "We have been preparing for it for a long time. We have our own strategy," he said. "God willing, the battle for Damascus will begin soon."

___

Associated Press writers Zeina Karam and Bassem Mroue contributed reporting from Beirut.

What's That Red Equal-Sign on Facebook All About?

Video: Spreme Court Justices Struggle With Gay Marriage

Justices heard arguments over whether to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

What's That Red Equal-Sign on Facebook All About? (ABC News)

They're popping up on Facebook news feeds around the nation, but without much explanation. Just what are those red equal-signFacebook profile pictures all about? Look no further than theHuman Rights Campaign, an organization in support of gay marriage that is running a particularly successful social media initiative as the Supreme Court discusses the issue over the next two days.

HRC

In a Facebook post today, the HRC asked gay marriage supportersto " paint the town red," wearing red in their wardrobe as well on their Facebook pages, changing profile photos over to the HRC "=" logo. The idea has even caught the eyes of Congress, with 13 members showcasing the symbol, according toRyan Beckwith.

Updated: 13 members of Congress changed their Twitter avatars in support of gay marriage today. bit.ly/YCp7sI #SCOTUS #Prop8

— Ryan Teague Beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) March 26, 2013

The campaign has left many on Twitter wondering what changing a profile picture will accomplish.

Just got off the phone with #scotus justice Scalia. Said he was going to vote no until he saw all the red profile pictures on FB. #pointless

— Eric Arnold (@DudeImEric) March 26, 2013

Boston comedian Dana Jay Bein had a more optimistic outlook in a Facebook post: "Seeing all of the people who support can inspire people to take MORE action - small change. I'd much rather see red equal signs than pictures of Grumpy Cat and ironic self shots."

RELATED SLIDESHOW: Pizza, Unicorns and Bacon: The Red Equality Symbols of Social Media

The HRC initiative has seen a few spin-offs since this morning, with several profile picture explanation posts seeing high numbers of shares, in an attempt to clarify what the red profile pictures stand for.

Also Read

US sends B-2s to South Korea for military drills

Associated Press/Lee Jung-hun, Yonhap - U.S. Air Force B-2 stealth bomber, left, flies over near Osan U.S. Air Base in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, March 28, 2013. A day after shutting down a key military hotline, Pyongyang instead used indirect communications with Seoul to allow South Koreans to cross the heavily armed border and work at a factory complex that is the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. (AP Photo/Lee Jung-hun, Yonhap) KOREA OUT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — In a show of force following weeks ofNorth Korean bluster, the U.S. on Thursday took the unprecedented step of announcing that two of its nuclear-capable B-2 bombers dropped munitions on a South Korean island as part of joint military drills.

The announcement is likely to further enrage Pyongyang, which has already issued a flood of ominous statements to highlight displeasure over the drills and U.N. sanctions over its nuclear test last month. But there were signs Thursday that it is willing to go only so far.

A North Korean industrial plant operated with South Korean know-how was running normally, despite the North's shutdown a day earlier of communication lines ordinarily used to move workers and goods across the border. At least for the moment, Pyongyang was choosing the factory's infusion of hard currency over yet another provocation.

U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement that the B-2 stealth bombers flew from a U.S. air base in Missouri and dropped munitions on a South Korean island range before returning home. It was unclear whether America's stealth bombers were used in past annual drills with South Korea, but this is the first time the military has announced their use.

The statement follows an earlier U.S. announcement that nuclear-capable B-52 bombers participated in the joint military drills.

The announcement will likely draw a strong response from Pyongyang. North Korea sees the military drills as part of a U.S. plot to invade and becomes particularly upset about U.S. nuclear activities in the region. Washington and Seoul say the drills are routine and defensive.

North Korea has already threatened nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul in recent weeks. It said Wednesday there was no need for communication in a situation "where a war may break out at any moment." Earlier this month, it announced that it considers void the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.

But Pyongyang would have gone beyond words, possibly damaging its own weak finances, if it had blocked South Koreans from getting in and out of the Kaesong industrial plant, which produced $470 million worth of goods last year.

South Korean managers at the plant reported no signs of trouble Thursday.

Analysts see a full-blown North Korean attack as extremely unlikely, though there are fears of a more localized conflict, such as a naval skirmish in disputed Yellow Sea waters. Such naval clashes have happened three times since 1999.

The Kaesong plant, just across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that separates the Koreas, normally relies on a military hotline for the governments to coordinate the movement of goods and South Korean workers.

Without the hotline, the governments, which lack diplomatic relations, used middlemen. North Korea verbally approved the crossing Thursday of hundreds of South Koreans by telling South Koreans at a management office at the Kaesong factory. Those South Koreans then called officials in South Korea.

Both governments prohibit direct contact with citizens on the other side, but Kaesong has separate telephone lines that allow South Korean managers there to communicate with people in South Korea.

Factory managers at Kaesong reached by The Associated Press by telephone at the factory said the overall mood there is normal.

"Tension rises almost every year when it's time for the U.S.-South Korean drills to take place, but as soon as those drills end, things quickly return to normal," Sung Hyun-sang said in Seoul, a day after returning from Kaesong. He is president of Mansun Corporation, an apparel manufacturer that employs 1,400 North Korean workers and regularly stations 12 South Koreans at Kaesong.

"I think and hope that this time won't be different," Sung said.

Technically, the divided Korean Peninsula remains in a state of war. North Korea last shut down communications at Kaesong four years ago, and that time some workers were temporarily stranded.

North Korea could be trying to stoke worries that the hotline shutdown could mean that a military provocation could come any time without notice.

South Korea urged the North to quickly restore the hotline, and the U.S. State Department said the shutdown was unconstructive.

North Korea's latest threats are seen as efforts to provoke the new government in Seoul, led by President Park Geun-hye, to change its policies toward Pyongyang. North Korea's moves at home to order troops into "combat readiness" also are seen as ways to build domestic unity as young leader Kim Jong Un, who took power after his father's death in December 2011, strengthens his military credentials.

The Kaesong complex is the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. Other rapprochement projects created during a previous era of detente stopped as tension rose in recent years.

At the border Thursday, a trio of uniformed South Korean soldiers stood at one side of a gate as white trucks rumbled through, carrying large pipes and containers to Kaesong. At Dorasan station, a South Korean border checkpoint, a green signboard hung above the trucks with the words "Kaesong" and "Pyongyang" written in English and Korean.

The stalled hotline, which consists of two telephone lines, two fax lines and two lines that can be used for both telephone and fax, was virtually the last remaining direct link between the rival Koreas.

North Korea in recent weeks cut other phone and fax hotlines with South Korea's Red Cross and with the American-led U.N. Command at the border. Three other telephone hotlines used only to exchange information about air traffic were still operating normally Thursday, according to South Korea's Air Traffic Center.

In 2010, ties between the rivals reached one of their lowest points in decades after North Korea's artillery bombardment of a South Korean island and a South Korean warship sinking blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack. A total of 50 South Koreans died.

There is still danger of a confrontation or clash. Kim Jong Un may be more willing to take risks than his father, the late Kim Jong Il, said Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University in South Korea.

Although North Korea has vowed nuclear strikes on the U.S., analysts outside the country have seen no proof that North Korean scientists have yet mastered the technology needed to build a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile.

President Park so far has outlined a policy that looks to re-engage North Korea, stressing the need for greater trust while saying Pyongyang will "pay the price" for any provocation. Last week she approved a shipment of anti-tuberculosis medicine to the North.

Since 2004, the Kaesong factories have operated with South Korean money and know-how, with North Korean factory workers managed by South Koreans.

Inter-Korean trade, which includes a small amount of humanitarian aid sent to the North and components and raw materials sent to Kaesong complex to build finished products, amounted to nearly $2 billion in 2012, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.

___

Associated Press writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this report.

Afghan villagers flee their homes, blame US drones

n this Tuesday, March 19, 2013 photo, Afghan men walk through the debris of their destroyed school in the village of Budyali, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. Taliban militants attacked the nearby district headquarters in July 2011, then took refuge in the school. The Afghan National Army requested help from coalition forces, who responded with drones, fighter jets and rockets, leaving the school destroyed, according to village elders. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

In this Tuesday, March 19, 2013 photo, a teacher peers out of a tent used as a classroom in a makeshift school in the village of Budyali, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. The village lost its former school building after Taliban militants attacked the district headquarters of Budyali in 2011. The Afghan National Army requested help from coalition forces, who responded with drones, fighter jets and rockets, leaving the school destroyed, according to village elders. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

KHALIS FAMILY VILLAGE, Afghanistan (AP) — Barely able to walk even with a cane, Ghulam Rasool says he padlocked his front door, handed over the keys and his three cows to a neighbor and fled his mountain home in the middle of the night to escape relentless airstrikes from U.S. drones targeting militants in this remote corner of Afghanistan.

Rasool and other Afghan villagers have their own name for Predator drones. They call them benghai, which in the Pashto language means the "buzzing of flies." When they explain the noise, they scrunch their faces and try to make a sound that resembles an army of flies.

"They are evil things that fly so high you don't see them but all the time you hear them," said Rasool, whose body is stooped and shrunken with age and his voice barely louder than a whisper. "Night and day we hear this sound and then the bombardment starts."

The U.S. military is increasingly relying on drone strikes inside Afghanistan, where the number of weapons fired from unmanned aerial aircraft soared from 294 in 2011 to 506 last year. With international combat forces set to withdraw by the end of next year, such attacks are now used more for targeted killings and less for supporting ground troops.

It's unclear whether Predator drone strikes will continue after 2014 in Afghanistan, where the government has complained bitterly about civilian casualties. The strikes sometimes accidentally kill civilians while forcing others to abandon their hometowns in fear, feeding widespread anti-American sentiment.

The Associated Press — in a rare on-the-ground look unaccompanied by military or security — visited two Afghan villages in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan to talk to residents who reported that they had been affected by drone strikes.

In one village, Afghans disputed NATO's contention that five men killed in a particular drone strike were militants. In the other, a school that was leveled in a nighttime airstrike targeting Talibanfighters hiding inside has yet to be rebuilt.

"These foreigners started the problem," Rasool said of international troops. "They have their own country. They should leave."

From the U.S. perspective, the overall drone program has been a success.

While the Pentagon operates the drones in Afghanistan, the CIA for nearly a decade has used drones to target militants, including Afghans, in Pakistan's border regions. CIA drones have killed al-Qaida No. 2 Abu Yahya al-Libi and other leading extremists.

Still, criticism of the use of drones for targeted killings around the world has been mounting in recent months. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights has launched an investigation into their effect on civilians.

Rasool said his decision to leave his home in Hisarak district came nearly a month ago after a particularly blistering air assault killed five people in the neighboring village of Meya Saheeb.

The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, confirmed an airstrike on Feb. 24 at Meya Saheeb, but as a matter of policy would neither confirm nor deny that drones were used.

Rasool said that he, his son, half a dozen grandchildren, and two other families crammed into the back of a cart pulled by a tractor. They drove throughout the day until they found a house in Khalis Family Village, named after anti-communist rebel leader Maulvi Yunus Khalis, who had close ties to al-Qaida.

The village is not far from the Tora Bora mountain range where in 2001 the U.S.-led coalition mounted its largest operation of the war to flush out al-Qaida and Taliban warriors.

"Nobody ever comes here. It's a little dangerous sometimes because of the Taliban," said Zarullah Khan, a neighbor of Rasool's.

But the historic significance of his newfound refuge was lost on Rasool.

"Who's Khalis? We stopped when we found a house for rent," he said, grumbling at the monthly $200 bill shared among the three families packed into the high-walled compound where he spoke with the AP.

Standing nearby, Rasool's 12-year-old grandson, Ahmed Shah, recalled the attack in Meya Saheeb. The earth shook for what seemed like hours and the next morning his friends told him there were bodies in the nearby village. A little afraid, but more curious, he walked the short distance to Meya Saheed.

"I wanted to see the dead bodies," he said. And he did — three bodies, all middle-aged men.

ISAF reported five militants were killed, but Rasool claimed they were businessmen. One of the dead had a carpet shop in the village, he said.

Disputes over the identities of those killed have been a hallmark of the 12-year war.

In Pakistan, an AP investigation last year found that drone strikes were killing fewer civilians than many in that country were led to believe, and that many of the dead were combatants.

In Afghanistan, the U.N. has reported that five drone strikes in 2012 resulted in civilian casualties, with 16 civilians killed and three wounded. It reported just one incident in which civilians were killed the previous year.

At the other end of the province from Meya Saheeb and Khalis Family Village lies the village of Budyali. To get there, one must drive along a long, two-lane highway often booby-trapped by militants, before turning turning off onto a narrow, dusty track and finally cross a rock-strewn riverbed.

A Budyali resident, Hayat Gul, says the sound of "benghai" is commonplace in the village. He says he was wounded nearly two years ago in a Taliban firefight with Afghan security forces at a nearby school that led to an airstrike.

Tucked in the shadow of a hulking mountain crisscrossed with dozens of footpaths, the school now is in ruins.

The early morning strike on the school took place on July 17, 2011, hours after the Taliban attacked the district headquarters and the Afghan National Army appealed to their coalition partners for help.

Gul said he and a second guard, 63-year-old Ghulam Ahad, were asleep in the small cement guard house at one end of the school. They awoke to the sound of gunfire as more than a dozen Taliban militants scaled the school walls around midnight, chased by Afghan soldiers.

A bullet struck Gul in the shoulder. Frightened and unsure of what to do, Ahad stepped outside the guard house and was killed. Bullet holes still riddle the badly damaged building.

Village elders and the school's principal, Sayed Habib, said coalition forces responded to the army's request for help with drones, fighter jets and rockets.

The air assault, which residents say began about 3 a.m. and likely included drone strikes, flattened everything across a vast compound that includes the school. Habib said 13 insurgents were killed.

ISAF confirmed that airstrikes killed insurgents in the Budyali area on that day but would not say what type of airstrikes or provide any other details.

Habib and a local malik or elder, Shah Mohammed Khan, said that in the days leading up to the airstrikes the sound of drones could be heard overhead.

"Everyone knows the sound of the unpiloted planes. Even our children know," Habib said.

The elders were critical of the U.S. attack. They said they would have preferred that the Afghan soldiers try to negotiate with the Taliban to leave the school and surrender.

Habib and the village elders recalled the attack while sitting in the middle of the devastated school, where debris was still scattered across a vast yard. They pointed toward a blackboard, pockmarked with gaping holes.

"Shamefully they destroyed our school, our books, our library," said Malik Gul Nawaz, an elder with a gray beard and a pot belly.

Habib said that in an attempt to rebuild the school, a contractor constructed a boundary wall before another Taliban attack. He fled with nearly $400,000 in foreign funds.

The roughly 1,300 students now take classes at a makeshift school made up of tents provided by UNICEF. Gul, who was taken to a U.S. military hospital at Bagram Air Base after the attack and treated for the bullet wound to his left shoulder, is now a watchman at the new school.

He held a small photograph of his dead colleague, Ahad, in his trembling left hand.

"We want to end this war," Gul said. "Enough people have been killed now. We have to find unity."

___

Kathy Gannon is the AP special regional correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be followed on www.twitter.com/kathygannon