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U.S. Joins Effort to Equip and Pay Rebels in Syria
(New York Times) Steven Lee Myers - The U.S. and dozens of other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay fighters of the Free Syrian Army and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria's military. The moves reflected a growing consensus among the officials who met in Istanbul under the rubric "Friends of Syria," that mediation efforts by UN peace envoy Kofi Annan were failing and that more forceful action was needed. At the conference, Secretary of State Clinton said that Assad had defied Annan's efforts to broker an end to the fighting and begin a political transition. "The world must judge Assad by what he does, not by what he says...and we cannot sit back and wait any longer."