The bases are expected to begin conveying limited shipments of weapons and ammunition within weeks, the US daily, The Washington Post, reported Saturday, quoting unnamed American officials as saying.

“We have relationships today in Syria that we didn’t have six months ago,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, US President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said during a White House briefing Friday. The United States is capable of delivering material “not only into the country,” Rhodes said, but “into the right hands.”

US officials announced on Thursday that Obama had authorized sending weapons to the militants in Syria ‘for the first time.’

The announcement came after the White House said it has evidence of the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army forces against the militants.

Syria has been gripped by unrest since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian army and security forces, have been killed in the violence.

Damascus says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

The Syrian government says the West and its regional allies, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are supporting the militants.

Several international human rights organizations have accused the militants operating in Syria of committing war crimes.