(15.5.2018) A second Obama administration program, „Timber Sycamore,“ was started by the CIA in late 2012 with the similar aim of arming rebels. This particular operation was active along the Turkish border to Syria‘s north, and a Jordanian crossing in the south, referred to as the “Southern Front.”

But Syrian opposition figures say this program was also compromised, with arms falling into the hands of ISIS or Al Nusra.

The program initially supplied light weapons. But as the Syrian civil war intensified, the U.S. strengthened its commitment by providing selected rebels with American “tune-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided” antitank missiles, better known as BGM-71 TOWs.