{"id":8111,"date":"2012-03-30T12:41:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T19:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=8111"},"modified":"2012-03-30T12:41:50","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T19:41:50","slug":"saudis-funnel-arms-to-syria-rebels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=8111","title":{"rendered":"Saudis funnel arms to Syria rebels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saudis seek to funnel arms to Syria rebels<\/strong>
\n30 March, 2012 – War in Context<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal reports: Saudi Arabia has pressed Jordan to open its border with Syria to allow weapons to reach rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime, officials from both countries say, a move that could buoy Syria\u2019s opposition and harden the conflict in the country and region.<\/p>\n

In a March 12 meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia\u2019s King Abdullah asked his Jordanian counterpart to permit weapons shipments into Syria in exchange for economic assistance to Jordan, these officials say. Jordan hasn\u2019t agreed, they said.<\/p>\n

Such an agreement could escalate prospects for a broader regional conflict. Syria\u2019s fighting has already added to the rancor between Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies, who support the country\u2019s largely Sunni opposition, and Shiite Iran, whose government backs Mr. Assad.<\/p>\n

The Saudi request adds to sentiment that Arab leaders have hit the wall in their efforts to resolve Syria\u2019s impasse diplomatically. Top officials from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab nations were notably absent from Thursday\u2019s Arab League summit in Baghdad, where leaders called on Damascus to adopt a United Nations plan to stop fighting and begin political dialogue. The plan doesn\u2019t call for Mr. Assad to step aside, as the Arab nations had sought. Mr. Assad said Thursday he would support the U.N. plan, but only once foreign countries stopped aiding rebels.<\/p>\n

Many Middle East officials view Saudi Arabia\u2019s arming of Afghan jihadis in the 1980s, through official and unofficial channels, as a prime contributor to the Afghan civil war and the rise of violent Islamic jihad. That has led to worries in many countries over the prospect of Saudi Arabia arming Syrian rebels now. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Saudis seek to funnel arms to Syria rebels 30 March, 2012 – War in Context The Wall Street Journal reports: Saudi Arabia has pressed Jordan to open its border with Syria to allow weapons to reach rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime, officials from both countries say, a move that could buoy Syria\u2019s opposition and 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":[2438],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8111"}],"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=8111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8112,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8111\/revisions\/8112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}