Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — The United States is said to have blocked weapons shipments to Western-aligned rebels in Syria.

A Syrian opposition member, Farid Ghadry, said the decision by President Barack Obama was taken in late 2011 as part of White House policy to sustain the regime of President Bashar Assad.

“The embargo was never made public, but it was later confirmed by the Saudis who spoke about it off the record to Syrian oppositionists I was in contact with,” Ghadry said.

[On Sept. 30, FSA is said to have shelled regime facilities in Damascus. Opposition sources said one of the targets of the mortar attacks was Assad’s palace.]

Ghadry, former president of the Reform Party of Syria, said he first learned of the U.S. arms embargo from an official of the European Union. He said he was told that the United States warned NATO and other allies not to
ship weapons to FSA, the only non-Islamist rebel movement.

“Later, pressured by his illogical decision, Mr. Obama modified it to
include only small weapons,” Ghadry wrote on his blog. “An AK-47 against
Scuds. It is clear that Mr. Obama did not want Assad defeated.”

Instead, Obama handed the Sunni revolt in Syria to his leading ally,
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan. Ghadry said Erdogan promoted the
takeover of the Syrian opposition by Islamists, particularly the Muslim
Brotherhood.

“Everything the Obama administration has done in the last three years
when it comes to Syria empowered Assad and weakened the liberal defectors in
the FSA,” Ghadry, with connections to the U.S. intelligence community, said.
“It also invited the jihadists to join the rebels thus making Syria a bigger
mess than ever imagined. Assad may have destroyed Syria but Obama buried
it.”

  ‘did not want Assad defeated’, Farid Ghadry, Free Syrian Army, Recep Erdogan, Reform Party of Syria, Syrian opposition told Obama blocked arms to rebels in 2011 to back Assad