Obama agrees to arm Syrian rebels

Russia recently opposed the European Union's decision to lift arms embargo the rebels in Syria. It has even agreed to supply air defence missiles to Assad Washington: The US is to supply direct military aid to the Syrian opposition for the first time, the White House has announced. President Obama made the decision after his administration concluded Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad were using chemical weapons, a spokesman said. Ben Rhodes did not give details about the military aid other than to say it would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided before". The Syrian government said the US statement was "full of lies".The White House "relied on fabricated information" about chemical weapons use in Syria in order to justify its decision to arm the rebels, the foreign ministry said. The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the US announcement is one that the Syrian opposition has been pushing and praying for for months.