Iran Military Forum

(remainder of article in link at the bottom)

For Iraqis, Aid to Rebels in Syria Repays a Debt
 
By TIM ARANGO and DURAID ADNAN
 
Published: February 12, 2012


FALLUJA, Iraq — Not so long ago, Syrians worked to send weapons and fighters into Iraq to help Sunnis fighting a sectarian conflict; suddenly, it is the other way around.

The New York Times
 
Support for Syria's rebels runs high in Iraqi cities like Fallujah.

A belated celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday on the outskirts of this western Iraqi city on Saturday quickly took on the trappings of a rally for Syria’s rebels. Young boys waved the old green, black and white flag Syria adopted in the 1930s after declaring independence from the French. Others collected money to send aid and weapons to the fighters opposing President Bashar al-Assad’s government across the border.

“I wish I could go there with my gun and fight,” said Sheik Hamid al-Hais, a tribal leader interviewed at his compound in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province.

It is increasingly clear that Syria’s sectarian war is becoming the regional conflict that analysts have long feared. The rush of recent events — including bombings and assassinations in Damascus and Aleppo, and intensifying violence in northern Lebanon coming directly out of the sectarian hostilities in Syria — suggest that the Assad government now also faces antagonists across its borders.

Like Iraq and Afghanistan before it, analysts say, Syria is likely to become the training ground for a new era of international conflict, and jihadists are already signing up. This weekend, Al Qaeda’s ideological leadership and, more troublingly, the more mainstream Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, called for jihadists around the world to fight Mr. Assad’s government.

Nowhere is the cross-border nature of sectarian hostilities more clear than in Iraq’s western desert, where Sunni Arabs are beginning to rally to the cause of the Syrian opposition and, in the process, perhaps strengthen their hand in dealings with an antagonistic Shiite-led national government in Baghdad.

A weapons dealer who operates in Anbar, who said he goes by the alias Ahmed al-Masri, said, “Five months ago I was told that the Syrian brothers are in need of weapons. I started to buy the weapons from the same guys that I previously sold to — the fighters of Anbar and Mosul. I used to bring them from Syria; now it’s the other way around.”

The man said he was selling mortars, grenades and rifles, and that his contact in Syria was also an Iraqi. In some instances, he said Iraqis were giving away weapons, and in those cases he charged money only to transport them across the border.

“It’s a good business, but it’s not easy money,” he said. “It’s risky, but this is life.”

Tribal leaders and security officials describe a small but increasing flow of weapons to Syria from Anbar Province and areas around Mosul, the northern city that is a headquarters for Al Qaeda in Iraq. For some weapons smugglers the price of an automatic rifle has increased dramatically — to $2,000 from about $300, according to one account.

Abdul Rahim al-Shammari, the head of the provincial council’s security committee in Mosul, said explosives and weapons were being smuggled through the border village of Rabia. A weapons trader in the area, who spoke anonymously because of the nature of his work, described smuggling weapons parts in empty cigarette cartons and said he recently made a $4,000 profit selling a PKC rifle. Across the border, he said, some Syrians were trading sheep and cows for weapons.

The sympathies for the Syrian rebels here in Anbar are borne from centuries-old tribal connections and, as a region dominated by Sunni Arabs, a shared sect.

“We have common tribes and a common border,” said Sheik Ali Hatem al-Suleiman, interviewed recently at his mansion in Baghdad, where he keeps a pet lion penned in the front yard. Mr. Hatem described Mr. Assad as a “butcher” and said that men in Anbar, his ancestral home, were already trying to help the opposition. “Yes, they are giving weapons. They have to,” he said, adding that Anbar tribal leaders were to meet this week to discuss ways to support the rebels.

(continued in following link:)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/world/middleeast/for-iraqis-aid-to-syrian-rebels-repays-a-war-debt.html?_r=1