Influx of U. S. weapons a worry in Syria
BEIRUT — As the U. S.- led coalition ratchets up operations in Syria, there are concerns that it will result in a rerun of what happened in Iraq, where $ 1 billion in weapons supplied to Iraqi fighters are unaccounted for.
Weapons, training and airstrikes by the coalition have aided ground forces in both Iraq and Syria, allowing Iraq’s military, Iraqi Kurdish fighters and Syrian Kurdish fighters to retake some 21,235 square miles of territory from the Islamic State extremists in the nearly three- year fight.
However, many in both countries are concerned about how the forces bolstered by the coalition will leverage their influence and arms once the militants are vanquished. Numerous Iraqi groups who benefited from the training and arms have been accused of humanrights violations.
President Donald Trump’s administration’s decision to provide Syria’s Kurds with more advanced weapons has raised concerns among the various players in Syria’s complicated battlefield. U. S. officials have said new weapons to be supplied would include heavy machine guns, ammunition, mortars and possibly tubelaunched optically tracked antitank missiles.
Coalition spokesman Col. John Dorrian said the weapons will not be reclaimed after the specific missions are completed but the U. S. will “carefully monitor” where and how they are used.
“Every single one” of the
weapons will be accounted for and the U. S. will “assure they are pointed at” the Islamic State, he said.
But opposition fighters — some of them backed by Turkey — battling Syrian forces in the country’s six- year civil war say there is simply no guarantee the weapons won’t be directed against them or others.
U. S.- backed Kurdish groups have clashed with Turkeybacked groups in northern Syria, where many factions are jostling to hold various zones of influence.
The coalition already has demonstrated an inability to track weapons in Iraq.
Amnesty International released a report this month detailing a 2016 U. S. Defense Department audit stating that $ 1 billion in weapons provided to Iraqi forces for use in the Islamic State fight are now unaccounted for.
The coalition could have worked more closely with the Iraqi government to ensure the weapons were accounted for, said Patrick Wilcken, a researcher with Amnesty and an author of the report. But in Syria, he said, it will be “almost impossible to avoid leakage and diversion of arms” provided by the coalition to fighters there.
Coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said, “The coalition takes all reasonable efforts to maintain accountability of equipment divested to the government of Iraq to fight” the Islamic State extremist group. Since the 2016 audit referred to in the Amnesty report, he said, “all deficiencies identified in that report have been corrected.”
Iraqi commanders must sign for all equipment they receive, and the coalition then continues to monitor them “for future vetting purposes” and on the battlefield, Dillon added.
This month, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine detailed an Iraqi photographer’s allegations of torture, rape and killings of Islamic State suspects at the hands of Iraq’s Emergency Response Division, an Interior Ministry unit that has played a leading role in the coalition- aided operation to retake Mosul.
Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish forces and Syrian policemen have all been accused of carrying out mass extrajudicial detentions of men and boys fleeing military operations against the Islamic State, according to reports by Human Rights Watch and the AP. Syrian Kurdish forces backed by the coalition have also been accused of abuses against Sunni Arabs, according to human- rights organizations and Syrian opposition activists.
Other armed groups — notably Iraq’s mostly Shiite paramilitary forces that do not receive direct U. S. assistance — have been accused of much more widespread human- rights abuses than the forces backed by the coalition.
The U. S. human- rights law known as the Leahy amendment prohibits the Defense Department from providing military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights. In March 2015, the Iraqi Emergency Response Division was disqualified from receiving U. S. equipment and training, Dillon said.
But he said the law does not prevent the U. S. from working with the division to help ensure a coordinated effort among different elements of the Iraqi security forces. The coalition has shared intelligence with the unit and conducted airstrikes to facilitate their military operations.
Iraq’s Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga — who have received some of the most extensive support from the coalition, including training, arms and air support — have been accused of destroying Arab property and forcing Arab residents out of dozens of villages retaken from the Islamic State.
In northern Syria, rebels are concerned that Syrian Kurdish forces will mirror the actions of the peshmerga and use the fight against the Islamic State to expand the land they control, ultimately creating a separate state by pushing out ethnic Arabs. Amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war, the Kurds have already created an autonomous Kurdish zone in northern Syria.
Col. Abdul- Razzak Ahmad Freiji, a Syrian army defector who is now with Turkeybacked rebels in northern Syria, said news of U. S. arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters exacerbates his concerns.
After the fight with the Islamic State group is over, Freiji said, “these weapons [ will be directed] against us.”