Syria rebels, once hopeful of U.S. weapons, lament lack of firepower

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-harakat-hazm-20140907-story.html#page=1

As the Syrian government warplane flew overhead, Malik Abu Iskandaroon ran to a storage room and grabbed a Russian-made surface-to-air missile.

Moments later, on the roof of the three-story villa, which serves as air force headquarters for the Harakat Hazm rebel group, he squinted at the threat in the sky.

Missile launcher resting on his shoulder, Abu Iskandaroon prepared to fire. But in the end he refrained, as the Sukhoi fighter jet flew by, miles out of range of his older-generation weapon. As he stood by helpless, the plane fired one rocket toward the town, killing four people.

The Russian-made Igla missiles "can strike a target up to 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] away," explained Abu Iskandaroon, who defected from a nearby government battalion. But the government warplanes "don't fly under 4 kilometers."

Abdulsalaam, a fighter with the Western-backed Harakat Hazm, sits outside the group's air force headquarters next to one of many Russian-made Igla missiles in their arsenal. The missiles pose little threat to the Syrian military's warplanes and helicopters which fly high above the missile's...
Months ago, Harakat Hazm, along with several other Western-backed Syrian rebel groups, appeared on the verge of receiving a strong boost in firepower they hoped would tip the balance of the civil war. In the spring, Harakat Hazm, with an estimated 7,000 fighters, became one of the first Syrian opposition militias to receive a shipment of American-made BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles.

But the U.S. weapons shipments proved to be very few. The advanced weaponry they'd hoped for never arrived.