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| U.S. doubles aid to Syrian rebels |
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According to AP, the Barack Obama administration pledged to provide an additional $123 million in aid, which may include for the first time armored vehicles, body armor, night vision goggles and other defensive military supplies.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the new package of assistance in a written statement at the conclusion of the conference that began Saturday afternoon and stretched into early Sunday in Istanbul.
The foreign ministers of the 11 main countries supporting the opposition attended the marathon session.
The additional aid, which brings total non-lethal U.S. assistance to the opposition to $250 million since the fighting began, "underscores the United States' firm support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria and for the opposition's advancement of an inclusive, tolerant vision for a post-Assad Syria," he said.
"The stakes in Syria couldn't be more clear," said Kerry. "Chemical weapons, the slaughter of people by ballistic missiles and other weapons of huge destruction, the potential of a whole country… being torn apart into enclaves, the potential of sectarian violence.
"This bloodshed needs to stop and that's what brought us here tonight on Saturday and a very early Sunday morning to talk about the possibilities for peace and transition."
On Wednesday, Assad accused the West of supporting Al-Qaeda militants and warned they would turn against their backers and strike “in the heart of Europe and the United States”.
Assad also launched his strongest criticism yet of neighboring Jordan for allowing thousands of fighters to cross the border to join a conflict he said his forces would win and save Syria from destruction, Reuters reported.
“We have no choice but victory. If we don't win, Syria will be finished and I don't think this is a choice for any citizen in Syria,” the president said in a television interview.
Assad's forces have been fighting back across the country against foreign-sponsored rebels who have taken control of much of rural Syria and seized a provincial capital in March for the first time in two years of fighting.
The conflict started with mainly peaceful demonstrations but descended into a civil war in which the United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed.
Drawing parallels with Western support for anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s, some of whom later formed the Al-Qaeda organization, which Washington claimed that attacked the United States on September 11, 2011, Assad said the U.S. and Europe would regret supporting rebels in Syria.
“The West paid heavily for funding Al-Qaeda in its early stages in Afghanistan. Today it is supporting it in Syria, Libya and other places, and will pay a heavy price later in the heart of Europe and the United States,” he told al-Ikhbariya channel.
“The truth is, what is happening is that we are mainly facing extremist forces,” Assad added.
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.jpg "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (center) and members of foreign-backed Syrian opposition are seen during a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, April 20, 2013.")