No Syria 'no fly zone': US

The White House on Friday all but ruled out the notion of mounting a no-fly zone in Syria, billing it as difficult, dangerous and costly, and unsuitable to halting close quarters ground battles.
A day after US officials pledged to stiffen military help to Syrian rebels, likely moving towards sending some form of arms for the first time, they made it clear that swift US mission creep in the country is not on the cards.
Deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes said mounting a no-fly zone in Syria poses significant logistical and strategic challenges that are more acute than those faced by Nato and Arab League allies in Libya in 2011.
"It's dramatically more difficult and dangerous and costly in Syria, for a variety of reasons," Rhodes said.
"One is that in Libya, you already had a situation where the opposition controlled huge portions of the country and you could essentially protect those portions of the country from the air.
"You do not have the same types of air defense system that exist within Syria. So in that regard, it's more difficult."
"We don't at this point believe that the US has a national interest in pursuing a very intense, open-ended military engagement through a no-fly zone in Syria at this juncture," he added.
US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice took a similar tack when asked about a possible no-fly zone in New York.
Domestic opponents of the White House have demanded that Obama set up a no-fly zone in Syria to protect refugees and rebels from air strikes.
Top White House officials on Friday refused to publicly provide a list of the kind of new aid Washington would provide in response to requests by Syria's opposition Supreme Military Council.
And while Obama plans to have in-depth discussions with allies at a G8 summit next week in Northern Ireland, US officials say they cannot divulge what military support will now go directly to the rebels' Supreme Military Council.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama has ordered the CIA to coordinate secretly and closely with Gulf allies already sending arms to the rebels.
Weapons would include small arms and ammunition, including anti-tank weapons but not anti-aircraft weapons, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed American officials.
But some analysts feared such weapons would not be enough against Assad's forces, who have been helped to victory in Qusayr, for example, by thousands of well-trained and armed Hezbollah militants.
Others argued that even providing heavy weapons would be unlikely to change the balance of power with Assad newly emboldened by his victories.
"What is needed, at a bare minimum, is a robust program of training and equipping the opposition, coupled with significant support in the areas of strategic planning, intelligence, and logistics," said Michael Doran, senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.