Syria rebels seek weapons, money on Turkish border

"They are just pretending to be religious to get money from the gulf," Abu Ali said of the Islamist battalions and their support from Persian Gulf nations. "They are hiding behind religion."The Syrian National Council, an opposition coalition based in Istanbul, acknowledges that it has received about $15 million, mostly from the Saudi and Qatari governments, a pair of gulf kingdoms that have publicly backed arming Syrian rebels. The council recently paid salaries for Aleppo-area rebel brigades affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, an insurgent umbrella group also based in Turkey, said Mohammad Sarmini, a council spokesman.Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political and social movement, has provided funding to a "few" opposition groups, said spokesman Zuhair Salem. That support is limited and is "not based on political party affiliations," said Salem, speaking from London. The money comes from private donations and not from any governments, institutions or companies, he said.Near a Syrian camp in the Turkish border village of Bahsin, a fighter who asked to be identified as Abu Yassin said he and his 100 or so compatriots in an Islamic brigade known as the Revolutionary Shield had been receiving the equivalent of about $120 per month for their services for the last three months. He said he believed the money was provided by gulf nations and was paid through the Muslim Brotherhood."We are an Islamist brigade, so we receive help," said Abu Yassin, who said he splits his time between fighting in Syria and living with his family in the camp.The funding advantage could put Islamist factions in a favorable position to assume power should Assad be overthrown, analysts say. One reason that Western aid has been slow to materialize is concern in Washington and elsewhere about militant elements within the armed opposition.There is much talk here of shadowy CIA men vetting rebel brigades' suitability for U.S. taxpayers' largesse. Everyone seems to want a piece of that action, but how to get in on the game seems to baffle many."It's all very foggy," agreed Mahmoud Sheik Elzoor, a slim, bespectacled former heavy-equipment salesman in Atlanta who gave up selling Caterpillars and returned to his homeland to fight. He, like others, came to Turkey seeking help for his battalion, known as the Brave.In recent days, Elzoor said, he had been calling people in Washington and Istanbul and had just sent an email to a representative of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a hawk on arming Syrian rebels. No firm promises yet, he said. The Islamist groups were sucking up all the oxygen, he complained.Elzoor, 52, called the recent weeks spent fighting in neighboring Idlib province "the greatest days of my life." Rummaging for aid is a less exhilarating enterprise.War, even its guerrilla incarnation across the border in Syria, is not a poor man's game.Rocket-propelled grenades, a rebel staple, sell for about $1,200 each on the black market. Elzoor recalled a recent battle in which 13 direct RPG hits failed to stop a Russian-made T-72 tank used by the Syrian military. That's more than $15,000 wasted.At a border village some miles away, Abu Abed, the mortar craftsman who goes by a nickname for security purposes, has been working on a homemade alternative to formal arms. For months, the guerrilla leader, who heads a rebel band in the nearby Syrian province of Latakia, has been fashioning weapons and bombs at a home in the Turkish hills less than a mile from the border.Of the 35 men in his brigade, he said, only 11 have regular weapons. Two dozen comrades from Latakia have been killed or arrested, he said.On the black market, he said, a Kalashnikov rifle can sell for at least $1,000 — more than five times the price tag a year ago. A bullet goes for more than $2.Apart from homemade mortar launchers, Abu Abed specializes in roadside bombs, manufactured here with dynamite, black powder or plastic explosives or fertilizer — whatever is available on the black market. Abu Abed estimates that he has fashioned 5 tons of the materiel into bombs, some packed into blue gas cylinders.