Following a joint investigation with Al Jazeera, The New York Times is now reporting that weapons sent into Jordan by the C.I.A. and Saudi Arabia in order to train Syrian rebels were stolen and sold to merchants on the black market. Worse yet, one of those black market weapons ended up in the hands of a Jordanian police captain in the commission of the murder of two American trainers in an insider attack.
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The officials said some of the stolen weapons were used in a shooting in November in which a Jordanian officer shot dead two USA security contractors, a South African trainer and two Jordanians at a US -funded police training facility near Amman before being killed in a shootout.
The accident happened when a Jordanian officer shot dead two United States government security contractors, a South African trainer and two Jordanians at a US-funded police training facility near the Jordanian capital before being killed in a shootout.
Jordanian officers who were part of the plan “reaped a windfall” from the sale of weapons, making millions of dollars and using the money to buy iPhones, SUVs and other luxury items, Jordanian officials told the newspaper.
The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment. That program was shut down after it trained only a handful of Syrian rebels. It was launched in neighboring Jordan in 2013 and relies heavily on Jordanian forces to transport weapons.
“The United States deeply values the long history of cooperation and friendship with Jordan”, said John Kirby, a spokesman for the department.
He said the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), Jordan’s intelligence service, is “a world-class, reputable institution known for its professional conduct and high degree of cooperation among security agencies”.
The training program, code named Timber Sycamore, has been running since 2003 under the control of the CIA and a number of Arab intelligence services and is meant to build up and empower forces opposing the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. However state officials denied all the allegations. In this case, it appears that Jordanian intelligence was supposed to physically bring the arms to rebels training at US-built facilities in Jordan right over the Syrian border.
Husam Abdallat, a senior aide to several past Jordanian prime ministers, said he had heard about the scheme from current Jordanian officials.
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Husam Abdallat, a high-ranking advisor to past Jordanian premiers, conceded that there are some corrupt officers in the GID, but insisted that: “The majority of its officers are patriotic and proud Jordanians who are the country’s first line of defense”. Accordingly, they took truckloads of weapons from the stocks, delivered the rest at designated drop-off points and sold the stolen weapons at large arms markets in Jordan. The budget for the program remains classified, but its biggest contributors are reported to be the United States and Saudi Arabia, along with other USA allies in the region.
