President Barack Obama has authorised sending US weapons to Syrian rebels for the first time, a US official said on Thursday after the White House said it has proof that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against opposition forces fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
The US decision came as Assad’s surging forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies turned their guns on the north, fighting near the northern city of Aleppo and bombarding the central city of Homs after having seized the initiative by winning the open backing of Hezbollah last month and capturing the strategic town of Qusair last week.
The White House said Washington would provide “direct military support” to the opposition but did specify whether it would include lethal aid, which would mark a reversal of Obama’s resistance to arming the rebels. But the US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the package would include weapons.
Syrian rebel and political opposition leaders immediately called for anti-aircraft and other sophisticated weaponry.
The arrival of thousands of seasoned, Iran-backed Hezbollah Shi’ite fighters to help Assad combat the mainly Sunni rebellion has shifted momentum in the two-year-old war, which the United Nations said on Thursday had killed at least 93,000 people.
US and European officials anxious about the rapid change are meeting the commander of the main rebel fighting force, the Free Syrian Army, on Friday in Turkey. FSA chief Salim Idriss is expected to plead urgently for more help.