The US is Funneling Weapons Worth 2 Billion Dollars into Syria

According to revelations made by a report by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Pentagon is spending upto 2.2 billion dollars to buy arms and ammunition from across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to arms militants, fighting in Syria.

The Pentagon has been buying arms from countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Serbia and Bosnia. Some of the arms are then sent to ports and airports in Bulgaria and Romania. The arms are then routed to countries like Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait before being finally distributed to rebel groups in Syria. 

The weapons included heavy firearms, mortars, AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns, Rocket Propeller Grenades and various other types of ammunition. Some weapons were funneled into Syria from what the investigators termed as the Black Sea route to Syria.

The consignments were carried out from ports in Constanta in Romania and Burgas in Bulgaria to the military ports of Aqaba, Jordan, and Agalar, Turkey, according to procurement documents, ship tracking data, and two cargo lists obtained by the investigators.

The US, however, hid the information in the documents to secure the arms in an attempt to conceal the end users of the weapons. These documents, some of which have been acquired by BIRN and OCCRP, do not mention Syria as the last stop for arms and instead mention countries like Kuwait, Turkey etc implying a deliberate attempt by the US to avoid political and legal responsibility.

This program is separate from the covert CIA program ended by US President Donald Trump that armed rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

The Pentagon is now also removing the documentary evidence about the final users of these weapons contrary to international arms protocols and instead heightens illegal arms trade via murky East European arms dealers. International rights bodies and watchdogs have also charged the US of “manipulating the process” and putting the whole control system at risk.

The US is “undermining” the object and purpose of the United Nation’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), an arms control researcher at Amnesty International Patrick Wilcken has told the reporters from the international investigative reporting platform which covers transnational crime and corruption.  

The report also alleges that many contractors and sub-contractors “bragged” about paying “commissions” to foreign agents to seal these deals. A subcontractor also employed a firm with links to organized crime.

The US has been aiding and arming rebel fighters since 2011 when a civil uprising in Syria turned into a deadly war - later termed as a “proxy war”.

Earlier last year in July, the investigators also uncovered a Saudi-backed arms pipeline in which eastern European countries sold weapons worth more than 1 billion dollars.

These countries approved arms and ammunition exports to countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey which funneled them to fuel the civil war in Syria.

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