Russia claims Libya training Syrian rebels

Libya is training and arming Syrian rebel fighters in their battle to overthrow President Bashar Assad, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations alleged. "We have received information that in Libya, with the support of the authorities, there is a special training center for the Syrian revolutionaries and people are sent to Syria to attack the legal government," Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council. He did not elaborate but called the alleged activities "completely unacceptable," said the training undermined Middle East stability and wondered if the Arab Spring "export of revolution" was "turning into the export of terrorism." Assad describes Syrian protesters as terrorist gangs financed by hostile foreign powers. Churkin made the accusations Wednesday shortly after Libyan Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib reported to the council about Libya since dictator Moammar Gadhafi's October 2011 overthrow and assassination. Keib responded to Churkin saying he trusted the ambassador was not using the matter to advance "political propaganda" and hoped "the reason for raising this matter will not be to impede or prevent the international community from interfering in the situation of other states where their peoples are being massacred and killed at the hands of their rulers." He did not speak to Churkin's claim about the training center. In Washington, the Obama administration said for the first time it was ready to provide direct assistance to Syria's rebels. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee the administration was preparing to supply communications and other "non-lethal" equipment to Syrian opposition forces. But he said the opposition's lack of cohesion and structure posed a challenge. It is divided into "approximately 100 groups that we've identified," he said. Meanwhile, the top U.N. relief official said through a spokeswoman the shattered Baba Amr neighborhood of the Syrian city of Homs she visited Wednesday was "devastated" and all-but-devoid of inhabitants. "She says that the parts [of Homs] they saw were completely devastated," Amanda Pitt, spokesman for Valerie Amos, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, was quoted by the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph as saying. "She said Homs feels like a city that has been completely closed down," Pitt said. The 45-minute visit to the former opposition stronghold was the first inspection of Homs by an independent outside observer since Syrian armed forces besieged it more than a month ago to crush a key hub of armed resistance. Her visit, under Syrian Red Crescent escort, also marked the first time the relief agency was allowed to enter the district since the siege ended March 1. The Assad regime first promised to let humanitarian relief into the area Friday, but troops loyal to the regime continually told aid workers the neighborhood was sealed, citing security problems. Because so few people were in Baba Amr, some activists called the Red Crescent's visit a distraction from the regime's attacks on civilians. "The main humanitarian need in Homs is for the Assad militias to leave, because they are the people who are killing us," activist Abo Emad told the British newspaper The Guardian. "That's more important than the lack of food and water and medical supplies," he said. He added Syrian authorities had been cleaning up Baba Amr "so that they can say 'armed gangs' did all the damage. It's a kind of setup." Residents alleged Damascus deliberately delayed allowing the United Nations and Red Crescent to visit Baba Amr so it could cover up evidence of atrocities and carry out "mopping up" operations by pro-regime soldiers and militias.