Gen. Salim Idris of the Free Syrian Army has yet to receive or hear anything about the military support promised by the White House last week, the Daily Beast reports.
"We are still waiting for the military support from the United States. They didn’t tell us anything about the military support. Direct and officially, we didn’t receive any information from the United States," Idris told the Daily Beast, adding that he had heard from "my friends who are close to the administration" while waiting to hear directly. "We welcomed the announcement from the United States," he said. "They announced that the regime used chemical weapons. But we are waiting for the next step, which will be the decision to support the FSA with weapons and ammunition."
The Obama administration has pledged to begin sending weapons to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) after the U.S. intelligence community concluded that the Assad regime used chemical weapons, including the highly lethal sarin gas against the FSA.
President Barack Obama’s move comes at a time where the FSA is struggling to hold ground against continuous attacks from loyalist forces supported by Hezbollah.
However, some lawmakers have called for stronger U.S. involvement by enforcing a no-fly zone similar to that used in Libya in 2011 and Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.
While air support would aid the FSA significantly, Assad’s air defenses are some of the best in the world and have been assessed to include the SA-5 Gammon, a surface-to-air missile system that has a max effective range of up to 162 nautical miles.