By David Martosko In Washington PUBLISHED: 02:33 EST, 12 September 2013 | UPDATED: 14:50 EST, 12 September 2013 Vital weapons shipments from the United States have begun to arrive in rebel fighting units that oppose the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, according to sources on both ends of the transactions. The light arms, ammunition and other small, trackable armaments – likely grenades, mortars and shells – are coming via clandestine CIA operations in a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in the 30-month-long civil war. The White House promised in June that it would arm anti-Assad forces who were not aligned with Islamist radical groups, authorizing the CIA to do the heavy lifting and manage the pipeline.
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Guns, mortars and ammunition smuggled in as U.S. steps up role in civil war
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CIA bases in Turkey and Jordan being used as conduit for military hardware
Not in favour of military action: Nearly half of those polled said the U.S. does not have an obligation to punish regimes like @placeholder that use chemical weapons to kill civilians