Weapons shipped into Jordan by the CIA and Saudi Arabia intended for Syrian rebels have been systematically stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and sold to arms merchants on the black market, according to U.S. and Jordanian officials.
Some of the stolen weapons were used in a November shooting that killed two Americans and three others at a police training facility in Amman, FBI officials believe after months of investigating the attack, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The existence of the weapons theft, which ended only months ago after complaints by the U.S. and Saudi governments, is being reported for the first time after a joint investigation by The New York Times and Al-Jazeera. The theft, involving millions of dollars of weapons, highlights the messy, unplanned consequences of programmes to arm and train rebels.
Arms in black market
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. The training programme, authorised by President Barack Obama in April 2013, is run by the CIA and several Arab intelligence services and aimed at building up forces opposing President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria. The United States and Saudi Arabia are the biggest contributors.
The existence of the programme is classified. U.S. officials say that the CIA has trained thousands of rebels in the past three years and that the fighters made substantial advances against Syrian government forces until Russian military forces - launched last year in support of Mr. Assad - compelled them to retreat.
The training programme is based in Jordan because of the country’s proximity to the Syrian battlefields. From the beginning, the CIA and the Arab intelligence agencies relied on Jordanian security services to transport the weapons, many bought in bulk in the Balkans and elsewhere around Eastern Europe.
Some of the stolen weapons were used in a November shooting that killed two Americans and three others at a police training facility in Amman, FBI officials believe after months of investigating the attack, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The existence of the weapons theft, which ended only months ago after complaints by the U.S. and Saudi governments, is being reported for the first time after a joint investigation by The New York Times and Al-Jazeera. The theft, involving millions of dollars of weapons, highlights the messy, unplanned consequences of programmes to arm and train rebels.
Arms in black market
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. The training programme, authorised by President Barack Obama in April 2013, is run by the CIA and several Arab intelligence services and aimed at building up forces opposing President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria. The United States and Saudi Arabia are the biggest contributors.
The existence of the programme is classified. U.S. officials say that the CIA has trained thousands of rebels in the past three years and that the fighters made substantial advances against Syrian government forces until Russian military forces - launched last year in support of Mr. Assad - compelled them to retreat.
The training programme is based in Jordan because of the country’s proximity to the Syrian battlefields. From the beginning, the CIA and the Arab intelligence agencies relied on Jordanian security services to transport the weapons, many bought in bulk in the Balkans and elsewhere around Eastern Europe.