Inside “Future Movement’s” Syria Arms Trade

Exclusive: Inside Future Movement’s Syria Arms Trade
By: Radwan Mortada – 29 November, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Al-Akhbar has obtained recordings of Future Movement MP Okab Sakr organizing weapons transfers to the armed Syrian opposition at the behest of Future leader Saad Hariri.

The phone call is the first hard evidence of the role Sakr and his backers in Future were playing in providing arms and logistical support to the Syrian rebels.

In a three-part series built on documents, audio recordings, and interviews with sources close to Sakr, Al-Akhbar will shed light on Sakr’s attempts to hijack the Syrian uprising for his own means while running the armed opposition into the ground.

A few weeks ago, Al-Akhbar’s offices in Beirut received an anonymous phone call. The caller claimed he was in possession of “audio recordings which will expose MP Okab Sakr and his role is destroying the [Syrian] revolution.”

The news did not come as a surprise. Sakr’s connection to the Syrian opposition was well-known, and his role as an arms dealer to the rebels had been documented in the press.

Neither was it the first time that information about the existence of audio recordings of Sakr’s conversations had circulated.

Al-Akhbar initially doubted the caller and his motivations, but he promptly sent the first recording. It sounded a lot like Sakr’s voice, which was later confirmed by audio experts.

A few days later, the anonymous caller made another phone call to Al-Akhbar and gave his email address. Further communications were carried out over email and phone to identify the extent of the recorded material and its importance.

The source did not reveal the number of recordings in his possession, saying only that there were dozens. For further confirmation, he sent an excerpt from a second recording.

It was Sakr’s voice again and the voice experts were also inclined to believe so. Yet the recordings raised more questions about the identity of the source, including how the recordings came into his possession and what he hoped to gain by leaking them to the press.

It was soon revealed that the source had been working with Sakr for more than a year as part of an operations room established to support the Syrian uprising.

As for his motivation to provide the recordings, the source said that “Sakr ruined the revolution with his crazy dealings.”
According to the source, there are several operations centers: one in Antakya, one in Adana, and one in Istanbul. He mentioned that Sakr had his own building in the Floriya neighborhood in Istanbul where meetings are held from time to time.

He also said that around 20 young men from various Syrian regions are charged with running military operations from the rooms. They coordinate with commanders of armed opposition groups to provide needed funding and hardware, and then they direct fighters toward areas under attack or siege, all under the supervision of Turkish and Qatari intelligence officers. …more