The American New York Times daily revealed, according to interviews made by former and current US officials, that the Saudi Arabia is funding a military program of the Central Intelligence Agency that aims at training militants.

The American New York Times daily revealed, according to interviews made by former and current US officials, that the Saudi Arabia is funding a military program of the Central Intelligence Agency that aims at training the militant groups in Syria.

In an article published Saturday, the daily documented an old equation to assert the fact that the US is used to manage wars whereas the Saudi Arabia funds them. The report was based on information offered by former and current officials in the US administration who asked not to be named.

Entitled "US Relies Heavily on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels," the article included information about the Saudi funds to the CIA program, reminding of the Al-Saud money support for the wars launched by the US in Angola, Afghanistan and Nicaragua.

Authors of the article noted that the US President Barack Obama decided in 2013 to amend the objective of the confidential program run by the CIA in order to arm the Syrian opposition mercenaries in their fight against the Syrian army.

To confirm the Saudi key role, the US officials unanimously agreed on the Saudi support for the Timber Sycamor, which is by far the largest from Qatar and Turkey to the program.

Moreover, despite that the US has never disclosed the exact amounts of Saudi money support, estimates have put the total cost of the arming and training effort at several billion dollars, whereas the article quoted former high-rank US officials as saying that the US administration was watching anxiously the money and arms flow from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to the opposition gunmen in Syria, including al-Qaeda-affiliate groups, through the Turkish borders in 2012.

The NY Times stated that a confidential meeting was held in Jordan between the then CIA chief, David Petraus, and Gulf states intelligence officials, during which Petraus blamed the officials for the poor coordination in sending arms to the Syrian opposition groups via the CIA officers deployed in Turkey or Jordan, and all the attending parties decided to start coordination in this respect.

"Months later, Mr. Obama gave his approval for the C.I.A. to begin directly arming and training the rebels from a base in Jordan, amending the Timber Sycamore program to allow lethal assistance. Under the new arrangement, the C.I.A. took the lead in training, while Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, the General Intelligence Directorate, provided money and weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles," the articles said.

"From the moment the C.I.A. operation was started, Saudi money supported it," it added.

“They understand that they have to have us, and we understand that we have to have them,” the daily quoted Mike Rogers as saying about the ties between the US administration and the Saudi Arabia.

Rogers is a former Republican congressman from Michigan who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when the CIA operation began. He declined to discuss details of the classified program.