28-03-2024 02:40 PM Jerusalem Timing

CIA Weapons Sent to Syria Militants Sold in Jordan: Report

CIA Weapons Sent to Syria Militants Sold in Jordan: Report

Arms shipped into Jordan by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia intended for Syria-based militants fighting the Syrian government have been systematically stolen and sold in the black market.

Arms shipped into Jordan by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia intended for Syria-based militants fighting the Syrian government have been systematically stolen and sold in the black market, a report said on Sunday.

Citing American and Jordanian officials, New York Times reported that Jordanian intelligence operatives have stolen the weapons and sold them to arms merchants on the black market.arms to Syria militants

Some of the stolen weapons were used in a shooting in November that killed two Americans and three others at a police training facility in Amman, the report said, based on FBI information after months of investigating the attack, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The weapons theft, involving millions of dollars of weapons, was reported after a joint investigation by The New York Times and Al Jazeera.

It " highlights the messy, unplanned consequences of programs to arm and train rebels — the kind of program the CIA and Pentagon have conducted for decades — even after the Obama administration had hoped to keep the training program in Jordan under tight control," the report said.

Jordanian officials said that officers who were part of the scheme reaped a windfall from the weapons sales, using the money to buy expensive SUVs, iPhones and other luxury items.

The theft and resale of the arms — including Kalashnikov assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades — have led to a flood of new weapons available on the black arms market, New York Times reported.

Investigators do not know what became of most of them, but a disparate collection of groups, including criminal networks and rural Jordanian tribes, use the arms bazaars to build their arsenals. Weapons smugglers also buy weapons in the arms bazaars to ship outside the country.