CIA boosts arms shipments to Syrian rebels

ARAB nations and Turkey, helped by the CIA, have dramatically increased military aid to Syrian rebels in recent months, The New York Times reports.

The US Central Intelligence Agency was helping their efforts, the newspaper added, citing air traffic data and interviews with unnamed officials and the rebel commanders.

The airlift has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and at other Turkish and Jordanian airports, the report said on Monday.

US intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, it said. They had also vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.

Turkey had overseen much of the program, fixing transponders to trucks ferrying the military goods through Turkey so it could monitor shipments, the paper added.

"A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3500 tons of military equipment," Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told the paper.

"The intensity and frequency of these flights," were "suggestive of a well-planned and co-ordinated clandestine military logistics operation", he added.

The armed uprising against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sprang up in response to the Damascus regime's crackdown two years ago on opposition protests.

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$1.4m seized as taxman targets Rebels

MORE than $1.4 million of outstanding tax has been collected from the Rebels and associates as a task force tries to disrupt the bikie gang's cash flow.

The Attero national task force includes state and territory law enforcement agencies, the Australian Crime Commission, Customs, the Australian Tax Office and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

It was created to "disrupt, disable and dismantle the criminal activity of the Rebels business model", Attero senior investigator John De Candia said.

"As money is the lifeblood of organised crime, we are also looking at non-traditional ways of disrupting the Rebels' business model by understanding their money flow and ensuring they comply with their tax obligations just like every other Australian is expected to do," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

Using the tax system also enables the task force to track and capture suspicious income that may have been laundered by the gang, Det Supt De Candia said.

Attero has seized $1.4 million of outstanding tax from people and entities associated with the Rebels and referred 30 gang members for prosecution over the debts.

A further 280 members and businesses linked to the Rebels have debts with the tax office of between $1000 and $1.93 million.

"All of these cases have been subject to debt collection action," Det Supt De Candia said.

As part of investigations, more than 700 charges have been laid against about 500 people for various offences.

These included serious assault, stalking, kidnapping, affray, firearms, weapons offences, drug offences, property, street and traffic offences.

Attero investigators have also seized more than 40 firearms and knuckledusters, tasers, machetes, illegal knives, batons and throwing stars.

Amphetamines, cannabis, steroids and ecstasy have also been found.

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