Syria’s opposition obtains U.S.-made anti-tank missiles

Not clear how they got them

WASHINGTON — Syria’s opposition fighters have been supplied with U. S.-made anti-tank missiles, the first time a major American weapons system has appeared in rebel hands.

It is unclear how the rebels obtained the wireguided missiles, which are capable of penetrating heavy armor and fortifications and are standard in the U.S. military arsenal.

The United States has sold them in the past to Turkey, among other countries, and the Pentagon approved the sale of 15,000 of the weapons to Saudi Arabia in December. Both countries aid Syrian opposition groups.

U. S. officials declined to discuss the origin of the weapons but did not dispute that the rebels have them.

Their appearance on the ground in Syria coincides with a U.S. commitment this year to escalate a CIA-run program to supply and train vetted “moderate” rebel groups, and to improve coordination with other opposition backers.

“The United States is committed to building the capacity of the moderate opposition, including through the provision of assistance to vetted members of the moderate armed opposition,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan. “As we have said, we are not going to detail every single type of our assistance.”

Videos showing rebels using the weapons were first uploaded to YouTube between April 1 and 5 by Harakat Hazm, a moderate insurgent splinter group, according to Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. Lister was among the first to identify the so-called TOW (“Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wireguided”) anti-tank missiles.

It is not clear if the weapons can make any difference in the conflict.