ISTANBUL - The United States is providing Syrian rebels with $123 million in new nonlethal aid while European countries consider easing an arms embargo, moves that could further pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the plans about the defensive military supplies at a meeting Saturday that was bringing together the Syrian opposition leadership and its main international allies.
The supplies could include body armor, armored vehicles, night-vision goggles and advanced communications equipment. It was the only tangible, public offer of new international support at the meeting between the 11 main countries supporting the opposition.
The additional aid, which brings total nonlethal U.S. assistance to the opposition to $250 million since the fighting began, “underscores the United States’ firm support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria and for the opposition’s advancement of an inclusive, tolerant vision for a post-Assad Syria,” Kerry said in a written statement.
Kerry said a portion of the new money would be used to follow through on President Barack Obama’s recent authorization to expand direct supplies to the Free Syrian Army beyond food and medical supplies to include defensive items. Officials said the exact types of supplies would be decided in consultation with allies and the rebels’ Supreme Military Council.
Kerry also announced nearly $25 million in additional food assistance for Syrians who remain inside the country as well as those who have fled to neighboring countries, bringing the total U.S. humanitarian contribution to the crisis to more than $409 million.
The fresh U.S. support was certain not to meet the strongest demands from the Syrian National Congress. The opposition umbrella group had called for drone strikes to disable Assad’s chemical-weapon and missile capability; a no-fly zone requiring significant military operations; and a U.N. resolution that condemns Assad for attacks on Syrians.
“We appreciate the limited support given by the international community, but it is not sufficient,” it said in a statement released at the end of the conference. “We call on the international community to be more forthcoming and unreserved to fulfill its responsibilities in extending support that is needed by the Syrian people.”
In the latest clashes, Syrian troops backed by pro-government gunmen captured at least one village in a strategic area near the Lebanese border, activists and state media reported.
The fighting around the contested town of Qusair in Homs province has intensified during the past two weeks as the Syrian military, supported by pro-government fighters backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group, has pursued a campaign to regain control of the border area.
The frontier region near the provincial capital of Homs holds strategic value because it links Damascus with the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria’s Alawite minority and is home to the country’s two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.
Syria’s regime is dominated by Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the rebels are primarily Sunni Muslims.
Obama has said he has no plans to send weapons or give lethal aid to the rebels, despite pressure from Congress and even some administration advisers.
U.S. administration officials acknowledged in congressional testimony Wednesday that efforts to unify the opposition’s political factions haven’t succeeded and that their understanding of rebel military forces has deteriorated as extremist groups fighting Assad, such as the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, have gotten stronger.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, in distinguishing moderate rebel military groups from radicals, it’s “actually more confusing on the opposition side today than it was six months ago.”
Dempsey had urged arming the opposition, along with former CIA Director David Petraeus and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Lawmakers urging the administration to take greater action include New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the Democrat who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Rep. Ed Royce, the California Republican who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Royce has prepared bipartisan legislation calling for the U.S. to arm Syrian rebels, while Levin and others have urged Obama to support the creation of safe zones along the Turkish border with Syria and the deployment of Patriot missile batteries “to neutralize” Syrian planes, Levin said Wednesday.
The Defense Department is assessing options for military intervention, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Levin’s committee Wednesday. The administration remains opposed to taking that step, because it could hinder humanitarian assistance, strain international alliances, pull the U.S. into a long military commitment and “have the unintended consequences of bringing the United States into a broader regional conflict or proxy war,” Hagel said.
Since February, the U.S. has shipped food and medical supplies directly to the Free Syrian Army. The aid was expanded later to include defensive military equipment. So far, the U.S. has provided an estimated $117 million in nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition, according to the White House.
A $70 million U.S. effort provides Jordan with training and equipment to detect and stop chemical-weapons transfers along its border with Syria and develop the capacity to identify and secure chemical weapons assets, Hagel said. Similar work is taking place in Turkey and Iraq, he said.
Britain and France are leading a push to modify the European Union’s arms embargo on Syria to permit weapons transfers to the rebels by the end of next month. The embargo is to expire at the end of May unless it is extended or revised.
Those in favor of the change say there have been no decisions on whether to actually supply the rebels with arms. They argue that allowing such transfers would increase the pressure on Assad. U.S. officials say they support testing this strategy.
Germany and the Netherlands, however, are said to be reluctant to support the step because they fear it would lead to further bloodshed.
In what appeared to be an attempt to soothe those fears, the opposition affirmed its commitment Saturday to an inclusive and pluralistic democracy that condemns extremism.
“Our revolution is for the entire Syrian people,” opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib told reporters, standing alongside Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The opposition also pledged in its statement that any military hardware it receives will be used responsibly.
The EU also is set to ease its oil embargo on Syria, two diplomats said Friday. Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee, Bassem Mroue and Lara Jakes of The Associated Press; and by Nicole Gaouette of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/21/2013