As the United States prepares to send weapons to the Syrian opposition, former Libyan rebels are now going public with the news that they have been doing exactly that for the last year.
"Our Libyan revolution was very much supported by the international community," says a 43-year-old former rebel commander in Benghazi who is in charge of smuggling weapons from Libya to opposition forces in Syria. "But the revolution in Syria seems to have been abandoned by the world. So over a year ago we decided to help and send weapons."
Libyan rebels have long seen their Syrian counterparts as comrades in arms, fighting a similar struggle to rid themselves of a bloody dictator. It helps, of course, that President Bashar al-Assad maintained a close alliance with Muammar al-Qaddafi -- the deposed Libyan leader even broadcast his final messages from a Syrian-based station after he was ousted from Tripoli, the capital.
Following Qaddafi's demise, some Libyan fighters traveled to Syria to support the armed uprising, but it may be through supplying weapons once used to topple their own dictator that Libyans make their greatest impact on the struggle against the Syrian regime.
A recent New York Times article confirmed the flow of weapons from Libya to Syria and noted that the effort was largely financed by Qatar. But while the article focused on shipments through the air, the supplies delivered by boat across the Mediterranean arguably constitute the more significant flow of weapons and goods.
The former rebel commander personally organized two shipments of weapons by sea from Benghazi to the Turkish port of Iskenderun this year. The weapons were then transported over land, with the knowledge of Turkish authorities, to rebel forces controlling northern Syria.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/10/how_libya_is_sending_weapons_arms_syrian_rebels