“They do not need arms. It is an unchallenged figure that 3,500 tons of arms have been shipped in by way of Croatia with the assistance of the CIA, funded by the Saudis, funded by the Qataris, going almost exclusively to the more jihadist groups,” Lord Ashdown, the former international high representative for Bosnia said in a debate according to British The Daily Telegraph.

“I know where those weapons are coming from. They are the weapons left over from the Bosnian war. They are being shipped out in large measure through Croatian ports and airports and I can tell you they are making vast sums for corrupt forces in the Balkans.”

Lord Ashdown described the rebels as “not a fit and proper collection of people for us to be providing arms to”.

Syria crisis started as pro-reform protests but with interventions by the United States and its regional and western allies, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it soon turned to a massive insurgency which took in numerous terrorist groups from all over Europe and the Middle East to wage one of the bloodiest wars the region has ever experienced.

Lord Ashdown said he knew of “no occasion” when a route to peace was to provide more weapons.
 

He said Syria was the “front line in a wider conflict”. “This is about the preparations some are deliberately making to have a wider religious conflict,” he said.

He said there was a “really serious diplomatic route” to take to remove the “steam” out of the conflict.

“If it is the case that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are today funding the very jihadists against which we are fighting, why are we not using international pressure, the United States, the European Union, to persuade Saudi Arabia and Qatar to stop, to prevent this?” he said.

“It seems to me we should not stumble towards arms when there is diplomacy still to be played out.”

The war in Syria which many fear is turning to a “war of hatred” has already taken more than 90,000 lives.