WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- The Obama administration is considering resumption of non-lethal aid to moderates opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, U.S. officials said.
The United States halted shipment of the non-lethal military supplies last month after warehouses of equipment were seized by the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamic fighters that broke ranks with the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army. Humanitarian aid still is being sent to civil war-torn Syria.
Shifting alliances have splintered Syria's opposition. Some Islamic militants fought with the Free Syrian Army in a battle against a rebel group affiliated with al-Qaida, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, prompting the U.S. to reconsider non-lethal aid, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Administration officials said no aid would be supplied directly to the Islamic Front but funneled through the Supreme Military Council, the military wing of the more moderate, secular Syrian opposition.
"You have to take into account questions of how the [Supreme Military Council] and the Islamic Front are interacting on the ground," one official told the Times. "There's no way to say 100 percent that it would not end up in the hands of the Islamic Front."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-government information office based in Coventry, England, reported Friday 482 people were killed in clashes last week between government and opposition forces.
They included 85 civilians, 21 "executed by ISIS fighters," a reference to the pro-al-Qaida group, and the rest killed in crossfire during clashes.
The human rights group called for a ceasefire in the region.
