Top rebel general sees big hurdles

ANTAKYA, Turkey — The defected Syrian general whom the United States has tapped as its conduit for aid to the rebels has acknowledged in an interview with McClatchy that his movement is badly fragmented and lacks the military skill needed to topple the government of President Bashar Assad.

Gen. Salim Idriss, who leads what’s known as the Supreme Military Command, also admitted that he faces difficulty in creating a chain of command in Syria’s highly localized rebellion, a shortcoming he blamed on the presence within the rebel movement of large numbers of civilians without military experience.

“It is difficult to unify the (rebels) because they are civilians and only a few of them had military service,” Idriss said.

Idriss has become the key man in the international coalition that’s battling to end the Assad government. The United States announced in April that it would funnel $123 million in nonlethal aid through his group, an operation that’s already begun. At the same time, U.S. allies, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, agreed at a meeting in Istanbul that all lethal aid destined for the rebels would pass first to Idriss.

But whether Idriss and his Supreme Military Command can become a functioning military force remains a huge question. While Secretary of State John Kerry said he was confident of Idriss’ ability to deliver a coherent rebel strategy while keeping weapons away from al Qaeda-linked Islamist groups, there’s been little evidence that that’s the case.