US sends small number of advanced weapons to Syrian rebels

[flowers]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/19/advanced-us-weapons-flow-to-syrian-rebels/

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have supplied Syrian rebel groups with a small number of advanced American antitank missiles for the first time in a pilot program that could lead to larger flows of sophisticated weaponry, people briefed on the effort said.

The new willingness to arm these rebels comes after the failure of U.S.-backed peace talks in January and recent regime gains on the battlefield. It also follows a reorganization of Western-backed fighters aimed at creating a more effective military force and increasing protection for Christian and other religious minorities—something of particular importance to Washington.

This shift is seen as a test of whether the U.S. can find a trustworthy rebel partner able to keep sophisticated weapons out of the hands of extremists, Saudi and Syrian opposition figures said. The U.S. has long feared that if it does supply advanced arms, the weapons will wind up with radical groups—some tied to al Qaeda—which have set up bases in opposition-held territory.

[evadR]

Yeah, straight through the Benghazi connection.

[Oceander]

But only MREs to Ukraine.

[EC]

But only MREs to Ukraine.

Poor sods. What did they ever do to deserve that sort of punishment? 

They are probably using the Turkish pipeline to get the weapons across. Hell, the smuggling routes from western Turkey are better and smoother than most of the actual roads. Not a chance they'd be using the eastern Turkey routes - that would mean risking the weapons falling into Kurdish hands and the Turks would not tolerate that. Same problem / fears rules out staging through Iraq.
The sea route is another possibility, considering that Assad's navy is basically two men on an inflatable mattress, but it does depend how easy they would be to tranship. Don't know the weights involved, but anything heavier than 200 lbs is going to be a real pain to move from one vessel to another at sea.

Staging them through Jordan is a much lower likelihood. Too much risk of them falling into government hands since they'd have much further to travel, and Jordan is really not interested in arming the rebels at all.