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BEIRUT – Mohamed Nizar says he and his fellow rebels have the will, thefervor and the money to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad. What they lack, he says, is the firepower. "If I make a phone call, I'll have maybe 2,000 Stingers," Nizarsaid, then acknowledged he could not get the shoulder-launchedanti-aircraft missiles because the government is choking off allthe main smuggling routes into Syria. Small arms purchased on the black market are being smuggled in, butfor all the international community's talk of helping the rebels tobring down Assad, no government is known to be arming them. Libya's new rulers, fresh from their own revolution that toppledlongtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, have pledged support for theSyrian rebels, but actually transferring weapons is tricky. Lastmonth, Lebanese authorities seized a ship carrying rocket-propelledgrenades and heavy-caliber ammunition, possibly bound for Syrianrebels. The fighters' attempts to bring in heavier arms that could changethe course of the 15-month-old uprising so far have been stymied atevery turn, even by countries sympathetic to the revolt. All arewary of being drawn into the fight. Any attempt by foreign governments to arm the rebels has been seenas a gamble because it could set the stage for a proxy war in analready volatile region. Such a scenario could entail Russia andIran backing the Assad government, with the U.S. and its Arab andEuropean allies supporting the rebels. On the other hand, the lack of weaponry to resist a powerfulcrackdown by Assad's forces has broad implications for the revolt,and it could push rebels toward desperate tactics. Already, Syria's rebels are shifting gears to smaller-scaleguerrilla tactics like roadside bombs and hit-and-run attacks asthe government chokes off the main smuggling routes. AP interviews with security officials, rebels and arms dealersindicate that individual rebel units scrounge for weapons withalmost no central organization or import routes for anythingheavier than automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. "An RPG is the biggest gun we have," said Nizar, who handleslogistics and weapons procurement for the Free Syrian Army, theloose umbrella group for rebel factions. He said it receives noequipment from foreign governments and has not seen any Americanaid. That contrasts sharply with the direction the conflict appeared tobe taking earlier this year. Outraged by a bloody assault to crushthe opposition in the city of Homs, Western and Arab governmentsspoke of supplying the rebels with cash. The Obama administrationsays it has started delivering a package of $12 million incommunications, medical and other "non-lethal" assistance to theopposition, but there have been no obvious changes on the ground. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Libya have spoken positively of the idea ofarming the Syrian rebels, but no country is known to be doing sonow. Speaking to the AP in Turkey, where he is based, Nizar said rebelshave managed to seize some 30 armored vehicles including tanks andwere using some of them, and that some rebels are trying to set uptheir own arms industry. He did not say what they are producing. In April, Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Arab Gulf states promisedto set up a multimillion-dollar fund designed to prop up Syria'srebels and entice defections from the army, but no money is knownto have been distributed yet. Nizar said money is not the issue — plenty pours in fromSyrians in exile. He said the biggest need is for anti-tank andanti-helicopter weapons, including rockets. The rebels have cast a wide net, contacting weapons dealers inBulgaria, Greece, Georgia and Azerbaijan, he said. Libya has"opened the store" for Syrian rebels, eager to help fellow"revolutionaries" and, more important, to get rid of itsdestabilizing overstocks of weapons from last year's civil war, hesaid. But the problem is transporting the weapons into Syria. Light armsused to flow relatively easily into Syria through small-scalesmuggling networks. But Syria's neighbors all have good reasons tostay out of the fight, and are wary of openly arming the rebels. Inrecent weeks they appear to be clamping down on smuggling. Nizar said Turkey's position is "live in our country and don't makeproblems." Jordan keeps even tighter control on FSA members on itssoil. Syria's border with Israel is sealed, Iraq says it hasdeployed troops to curb smuggling across its border with Syria, andLebanon is too divided to take any sort of unified stance on Syria.Russia, Syria's chief backer, has a naval base on the country'sMediterranean coast. Lebanese authorities have been cracking down on weapons believed tobe heading for Syria, particularly through the northern port cityof Tripoli, where sympathy for the rebels is widespread. On May 7, Lebanese authorities said they seized 60,000 rounds ofammunition hidden in a ship that arrived in Tripoli carrying usedcars. Last month, they seized a ship headed to Tripoli carryingLibyan weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and heavycaliber ammunition. Abu Raed, 40, a former smuggler living in northern Lebanon near theborder with Syria, said weapons flowed freely until Syria clampeddown. "There were many ways to smuggle weapons inside Syria, especiallyat the beginning when areas close to the northern border were freeof army presence," he said. Then the Syrian army mined the border and closed most of thesmugglers' crossings, he said. "This has limited the work ofsmugglers noticeably." Early in the uprising, rebels would hold ground and even entireneighborhoods or even towns where opposition sentiment was high.But lack of weapons and the government's overwhelming firepowerforced a shift in tactics and rebels appear to have turned toroadside bombs, hit-and-run ambushes and assassinations. Since late December, al-Qaida-style suicide bombings have becomeincreasingly common, although the FSA denies having anything to dowith those. Instead, they say, they target military vehicles andsoldiers to chip away at the government. "At least in recent weeks, you no longer have these big battleslike one had in Homs," Jakob Kellenberger, president ofInternational Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters on May 8in Geneva. "You have more guerrilla attacks and bomb attacks," he said. Syrian army units have also stepped up their firepower. Some areusing Russian-made 2S4 Tyulpan 240mm self-propelled mortars, theworld's heaviest mortars, said Nic Jenzen-Jones, an Australia-basedsmall arms consultant. "Even assuming significant quantities of weapons end up inopposition hands, the regime might feel it has little reason toworry," the International Crisis Group said in a recent report. "InLibya, the massive NATO air campaign almost certainly did more todefeat (Moammar) Gadhafi's forces than whatever assistance wasprovided to rebel groups; even then, it took months to achievevictory." ___ AP writers Christopher Torchia in Istanbul, Stephen Braun inWashington, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Jamal Halaby inAmman, Jordan, contributed to this report. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Punch Press Machine , Servo Motor Press Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit Mechanical Power Presses today!
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