{"id":18908,"date":"2013-11-05T14:24:08","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T21:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=18908"},"modified":"2013-11-05T14:24:08","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T21:24:08","slug":"saudis-allies-to-boost-aid-to-takfiris-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=18908","title":{"rendered":"Saudis, allies to boost aid to Takfiris in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Saudis, allies to boost aid to Takfiris, report says<\/strong><br \/>\n3 November, 2013 &#8211; Shia Post<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf region will \u2018strengthen military support\u2019 for the foreign-backed Takfiri militants in Syria, says a US daily.<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the move came after a decision by US President Barack Obama \u201cnot to launch airstrikes against Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPersian Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are moving to strengthen their military support for Syrian rebels and develop policy options independent from the United States,\u201d the Poststated.<\/p>\n<p>The US daily also said that the Saudis plan to \u201cexpand training facilities they operate in Jordan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report came as US Secretary of State John Kerry was scheduled to arrive in Saudi Arabia on Sunday as part of efforts to repair Washington\u2019s frayed relations with Riyadh.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia\u2019s spy chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud said last month that Riyadh\u2019s ties with Washington have been deteriorating for a while over several issues including Syria.<\/p>\n<p>According to some Persian Gulf officials whose names were not mentioned in the Post article, a parallel operation independent of US efforts is being discussed by the Saudis with other countries in the region.<\/p>\n<p>In September, Saudi Arabia guaranteed to continue its financial and logistic support for the militants, including terrorist al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, during a meeting held in the Jordanian capital, Amman.<\/p>\n<p>Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011. According to statistics compiled by the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and a total of 7.8 million of others displaced due to the turmoil. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.shiapost.com\/2013\/11\/03\/saudis-allies-to-boost-aid-to-takfiris-report-says\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;source<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D18908&amp;text=Saudis%2C+allies+to+boost+aid+to+Takfiris+in+Syria&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudis, allies to boost aid to Takfiris, report says 3 November, 2013 &#8211; Shia Post Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf region will \u2018strengthen military support\u2019 for the foreign-backed Takfiri militants in Syria, says a US daily. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the move came after a decision by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=18908#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2734],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18909,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18908\/revisions\/18909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}