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Congress: Stop Arming Syrian Rebels

House and Senate intelligence committees vote to stop aid.

The House and Senate intelligence committees voted to put severe restrictions on funding to the Syrian rebels in an effort to block President Obama from arming them, sources told The Hill on Wednesday. In the vote last month, lawmakers decided they didn’t want the weapons to fall into the hands of terrorists, as some of the rebel groups have ties to al Qaeda. But the White House still seems committed to the idea of arming the rebels, with Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden both briefing the panels in June about it. “It’s not clear to me that the administration has a workable policy,” said Maine Republican Susan Collins, a member of the Senate intelligence committee.