Syria Geneva talks take positive step - opposition 
 
 Both sides have said they will continue with the peace talks until Friday 
 
 Syria's government has said it will debate a UN-backed document that sets out a way to end the three-year conflict, in a move hailed by the opposition as a "positive step forward" 
 
 Presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban said they would discuss the Geneva Communique "paragraph by paragraph". 
 
 She made no mention of the part that calls for a transitional government. 
 
 The idea of a transition process has proved to be a major sticking point at the peace talks in Geneva. 
 
 But there were some slightly more promising signs on Wednesday. 
 
 Ms Shaaban confirmed that government delegates were willing to go through the 2012 communique "paragraph by paragraph". 
 
 She said the first issue they wanted to discuss was the first issue in the document, "stopping terrorism". 
 
 "Even in [the Geneva I communique], the first item is to stop violence which has turned to terrorism," she said. 
 
 The government generally labels any armed opposition as "terrorism". 
 
 She claimed that the opposition's aim "to jump to the item that speaks about transitional government" proved they "are only interested in being in government". 
 
 Continue reading the main story Geneva Communique A UN-backed meeting in 2012 issued the document and urged Syria to: Form transitional governing body 
 
 Start national dialogue 
 
 Review constitution and legal system 
 
 Hold free and fair elections 
 
 Louay al-Safi, a spokesman for the opposition National Coalition, said the fact that the document was now on the table was "a positive step forward". 
 
 "For the first time now we are talking about the transitional governing body, the body whose responsibility is to end dictatorship and move toward democracy and end the fighting and misery in Syria," he told reporters. 
 
 However, he stressed again the opposition view that the transfer of power issue must "come first, because nothing else can be achieved before we form a transitional governing body". 
 
 The UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said after adjourning Tuesday's talks that the negotiations continued to be difficult and were unlikely to get any easier. 
 
 But he said the representatives of both sides had confirmed that they intended to stay and continue the discussions until Friday, as planned. 
 
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 Meanwhile, the Syrian government has criticised a recent decision by the US Congress to approve continued support for rebels. 
 
 Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said the aid contradicted Washington's sponsorship of the Geneva peace talks. Moscow, the other sponsor, has continued to sell weapons to the Syrian military but notes that there is no international arms embargo. 
 
 It emerged on Monday that Congress had secretly given its backing to a CIA programme to arm and train "moderate", non-Islamist Syrian factions in Jordan, and provide a variety of small arms and anti-tank rockets. 
 
 In a separate development on Wednesday, the UN welcomed the UK's decision to take in hundreds of the "most vulnerable" refugees from Syria. 
 
 The British government had previously been reluctant to accept Syrian refugees, preferring to focus on humanitarian aid to the region, but it was facing a parliamentary defeat on the issue. ||||| BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamist rebels and extremist groups have seized control of most of Syria’s oil and gas resources, a rare generator of cash in the country’s war-battered economy, and are now using the proceeds to underwrite their fights against one another as well as President Bashar al-Assad, American officials say. 
 
 While the oil and gas fields are in serious decline, control of them has bolstered the fortunes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and the Nusra Front, both of which are offshoots of Al Qaeda. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is even selling fuel to the Assad government, lending weight to allegations by opposition leaders that it is secretly working with Damascus to weaken the other rebel groups and discourage international support for their cause. 
 
 Related Coverage Syrian Talks Disrupted by Congress’s Approval of Aid to Rebels 
 
 Although there is no clear evidence of direct tactical coordination between the group and Mr. Assad, American officials say that his government has facilitated the group’s rise not only by purchasing its oil but by exempting some of its headquarters from the airstrikes that have tormented other rebel groups. 
 
 Crisis in Syria News, analysis and photos of the conflict that has left more than 100,000 dead and millions displaced. Full Coverage » 
 
 The Nusra Front and other groups are providing fuel to the government, too, in exchange for electricity and relief from airstrikes, according to opposition activists in Syria’s oil regions. 
 
 The scramble for Syria’s oil is described by analysts as a war within the broader civil war, one that is turning what was once an essential source of income for Syria into a driving force in a conflict that is tearing the country apart. “Syria is an oil country and has resources, but in the past they were all stolen by the regime,” said Abu Nizar, an antigovernment activist in Deir al-Zour. “Now they are being stolen by those who are profiting from the revolution.” 
 
 He described the situation in his oil-rich province as “overwhelming chaos.” 
 
 The Western-backed rebel groups do not appear to be involved in the oil trade, in large part because they have not taken over any oil fields. 
 
 Syria was once an important supplier of oil to Europe, and attracted international oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell and Suncor to develop its fields. Declining even before the anti-Assad uprising began, the oil industry has taken a beating since, with production down to no more than 80,000 barrels a day at the end of 2013 from about 400,000 barrels a day in 2011. Violence has damaged pipelines and other infrastructure, aggravating energy shortages and leaving the country heavily dependent on imports from its allies. 
 
 As the war has progressed, rebel groups have seized control of the oil and gas fields scattered across the country’s north and east, while Kurdish militias have taken over areas near the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. 
 
 Filling the void left by the government’s withdrawal is a Wild West-like patchwork of local efforts to try to wring any possible profit from the remnants of the oil industry. In some areas, locals have used primitive methods to extract usable products from crude they drain from pipelines or storage tanks, often causing environmental and health problems in their communities. 
 
 Elaborate trade networks have also evolved, with oil being smuggled across borders in plastic jugs and transported by trucks and on donkeys into Iraq and Turkey. 
 
 “The government practically doesn’t control anything anymore,” said Dragan Vuckovic, president of Mediterranean International, an oil service company that operates across the Middle East and North Africa. “The oil is controlled by crooks and extremists. They sell it for a bargain wherever they can find a buyer.” 
 
 Oil has proved to be a boon for the extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who have seized control of most of the oil-rich northern province of Raqqa. The group typically sells crude to middlemen who resell it to the government but sometimes sells it directly to the government, said Omar Abu Laila, a spokesman for the rebels’ Supreme Military Council. 
 
 “Selling the oil brings in more cash, so why not sell it to the regime, which offers higher prices?” he asked. 
 
 An American official said the United States had received multiple credible reports that the Syrian government had purchased crude from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that was delivered in tanker trucks from areas the group controls to behind Syrian government lines. 
 
 The official also said Mr. Assad’s government had refrained from bombing the group’s headquarters in Raqqa and elsewhere, although their locations are well known and clearly marked with black flags and banners. 
 
 A second American official said that while Mr. Assad’s government is growing ever more desperate for oil, the group is becoming increasingly independent of wealthy donors in the Persian Gulf and other funding sources. As the group has gained control of more territory, it has been able to sustain its operations through a combination of oil revenues, border tolls, extortion and granary sales, the official said. 
 
 While other American officials discounted the possibility of tactical military cooperation between the group and Mr. Assad’s government, they said that Syrian intelligence had almost certainly infiltrated opposition groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Nusra Front, to track their activities. 
 
 “The Syrian regime is as Machiavellian as they come, and there is little it won’t do to hold on to power,” said an American counterterrorism official. “If the regime could strike a tactical accord with an enemy faction to achieve its larger strategic goals, it probably would.” 
 
 Denied access to Syria’s oil regions, Mr. Assad’s government has become increasingly dependent on its foreign allies and imports most of its fuel from Iran and Iraq, while Hezbollah smuggles diesel and gasoline over the border from Lebanon, according to regional oil experts. The opposition also accuses Syria’s Kurds of providing the government with oil. 
 
 While rebel oil revenues are small by world market standards, they can help groups exercise local power as well as finance their operations. 
 
 “Even sold at discounted prices, this oil could be generating significant revenue for rebels to arm themselves,” said Badr H. Jafar, chairman of Crescent Petroleum, a regional oil and gas company based in the United Arab Emirates. 
 
 The politics of the local oil trade can be complex, insiders say. When the Nusra Front and other rebel groups took over a natural gas facility in the northern province of Hasaka, they sought to cut the supply to a government facility, said Amer Abdy, a local activist. 
 
 But local tribal leaders objected, saying that would simply invite government airstrikes to destroy the plant. So they brokered a deal to keep a limited amount of gas flowing so the area would not be bombed, Mr. Abdy said. 
 
 When the government first withdrew from the oil fields of Deir al-Zour Province in the country’s east, said Abu Nizar, an activist there, rebel brigades and local tribes took control of wells and sold or tried to refine whatever oil they could extract to buy arms. Recently, however, most of the area’s rebel brigades have left the administration of the wells to an Islamic legal commission set up to run local affairs, he said. 
 
 One facility the group controls is a natural gas plant that feeds a major power station near Homs that is still controlled by the government. 
 
 “We can’t cut off the gas because it would lead to a power cut in a large part of Syria,” Abu Nizar said, adding that he hoped the new commission would effectively manage the area’s resources. 
 
 “Let’s be honest. Some of the wells were used to arm the rebels and to fund aid operations,” he said, “but unfortunately the majority were robbed and exploited by thieves.” ||||| One of two cargo ships intended to take part in a Danish-Norwegian mission to transport chemical agents out of Syria docks in Limassol, December 14, 2013. 
 
 AMSTERDAM Syria has given up less than 5 percent of its chemical weapons arsenal and will miss next week's deadline to send all toxic agents abroad for destruction, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. 
 
 The deliveries, in two shipments this month to the northern Syrian port of Latakia, totaled 4.1 percent of the roughly 1,300 tonnes of toxic agents reported by Damascus to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 
 
 "It's not enough and there is no sign of more," one source briefed on the situation said. 
 
 The internationally backed operation, overseen by a joint OPCW-United Nations mission, is now 6-8 weeks behind schedule. Damascus needs to show it is still serious about relinquishing its chemical weapons, the sources told Reuters. 
 
 Failure to eliminate its chemical weapons could expose Syria to sanctions, although these would have to be supported in the U.N. Security Council by Russia and China, which have so far refused to back such measures against President Bashar al-Assad. 
 
 The deal under which Syria undertook to eliminate its chemical arsenal stopped the United States and its allies from launching bombing raids to punish Assad for a chemical attack last August and made clear the limits to international action against him. 
 
 U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggested in a report to the Security Council this week that shipments had been unnecessarily delayed and urged the Syrian government to speed up the process. 
 
 MESSAGE TO SYRIA 
 
 That is the message that will be given to Syria's representative to the OPCW during its executive council meeting on Thursday in The Hague, where the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation is located, the sources said. 
 
 A senior Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the U.N. Security Council will be briefed on the issue by mission head Sigrid Kaag next week. 
 
 "All the indications are, and the secretary-general's report makes clear, that actually the regime has been sort of stalling on the implementation of the agreement," the diplomat said. 
 
 "It will be important what Sigrid Kaag says about whether she thinks these delays are deliberately politically motivated and why or whether there's any truth in the weather, the security and those more technical aspects," he said. 
 
 Another senior Western diplomat said the Syrian government is "teasing us" by dragging its heels but doing enough to avoid being declared in non-compliance with its obligation to destroy its chemical weapons program. 
 
 The second diplomat added that Russia would never permit the U.N. Security Council to declare Assad's government in non-compliance with its duty to eliminate its poison gas program. 
 
 "The Russians will never accept it," the second diplomat said, adding that Western powers were also reluctant to do anything that could be seen as undermining the Geneva peace talks between Assad's government and the opposition. 
 
 "Our impression is that they (Assad's government) are managing this issue in parallel with the Geneva discussion," he said. "Everything is blocked so they are blocking on the chemical weapons to remind us" of their power on this issue. 
 
 Syria, where civil war has killed well over 100,000 people and forced millions to flee, has blamed delays on security obstacles. It said the mission could not be safely carried out unless it received armored vehicles and communications equipment. 
 
 A source briefed on the situation said: "Yes, it's true there is a war, but have you ever heard of a civil war without security issues? They have all the necessary means they need for transportation. Now they need to start shipping the chemicals out." 
 
 Under a deal agreed by Russia and the United States after the August 21 sarin gas attack, Syria vowed to give up its entire stockpile by mid-2014. The rocket attacks in the outskirts of Damascus killed hundreds, including women and children. 
 
 Eradicating Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, including sarin, mustard gas and VX, requires massive foreign funding and logistical support. 
 
 The bulk of the most toxic substances are to be destroyed on the Cape Ray, a U.S. cargo ship now en route to the Mediterranean that will be loaded with the chemicals at an Italian port. The remainder will go to several commercial waste processing facilities, including in Britain and Germany. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Giles Elgood and Eric Walsh) ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption Some 9.5 million people have been displaced since the uprising began in March 2011 
 
 Syrian peace talks being held in Geneva have broken up early amid opposition demands that the government address the question of a transition of power. 
 
 Opposition spokesmen said they wanted the Syrian government to have time to come up with a proposal on the issue. 
 
 The talks are at an impasse over the issue, with division over the future role of President Bashar al-Assad. 
 
 UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi also said that there had been no breakthrough on getting aid to the city of Homs. 
 
 'Not co-operating' 
 
 Government and opposition delegates held a joint session with Mr Brahimi on Tuesday morning. 
 
 On previous days that has been followed by separate consultations with Mr Brahimi and each of the two delegations in the afternoon, but on Tuesday the opposition delegation said this would not happen. 
 
 "The regime is not co-operating on any subject, not on humanitarian issues and not on a transitional governing body," opposition delegate Rima Fleihan told the AFP agency. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi says it is "not easy" to get aid in Homs 
 
 Another opposition delegate, Murhaf Jouejati, told Associated Press the delay would give the government time "to come out with their own vision for a future Syria". 
 
 Addressing a news conference later in the day, Mr Brahimi said: "We have not had any breakthrough but we are still at it and this is good enough as far as I am concerned." 
 
 He said that he had cancelled the meeting "with no request or pressure from either side". 
 
 Mr Brahimi also said that a convoy bearing humanitarian aid was still waiting to enter besieged parts of the city of Homs. 
 
 He said the government had not yet granted permission, adding that "we haven't given up on that". 
 
 The government has offered to allow women and children to leave opposition-held areas, and to grant safe passage to men as well if they receive a list of their names. 
 
 But the opposition has dismissed it as a ruse to displace and arrest its supporters. 
 
 Western diplomats have said that if aid is not allowed in by next week they will draft a resolution at the UN Security Council to put pressure on the government and its ally, Russia. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Fighting between government and rebel forces is meanwhile raging on in Syria 
 
 Some 2,500 people have been trapped in the Old City of Homs since June 2012, without access to food and medical supplies. 
 
 On Tuesday, the governor of Homs province said a UN official was in contact with rebel fighters in besieged parts of the city to try to get civilians evacuated, while the UN's World Food Programme said it was ready to deliver a month of rations once it got clearance from both sides. 
 
 Opposition delegate in Geneva, Louay Safi, said that the rebel Free Syria Army was prepared to lift a siege on three Shia villages in the north, allegedly being used as bases by the government from which to attack Aleppo, if this came as part of a wider deal to lift sieges across the country. 
 
 'Dialogue of the deaf' 
 
 The third day of face-to-face meetings in Switzerland was said to have broken up after the government's representatives set out a "declaration of basic principles" that did not mention a political transition as demanded by the 2012 Geneva Communique, the basis of the negotiations. 
 
 Government spokeswoman Buthaina Shaaban said the principles included protecting Syria's sovereignty, preserving state institutions and stopping the threat from "terrorist" groups, the designation officials routinely use to describe Mr Assad's opponents. 
 
 The government's proposal also included a condemnation of the US decision to "resume arming terrorist groups in Syria". 
 
 "We were surprised that this basic paper was rejected by the other side," Ms Shaaban said. 
 
 Mr Jouejati said the discussions had ended on a "sour note" after the government delegation became confrontational. 
 
 "We thought there was no point in continuing this since it was going to be a dialogue of the deaf," he said. 
 
 The National Coalition insists the government must agree to the full implementation of the Geneva Communique, which it says means Mr Assad will have no role to play in Syria's future. 
 
 The government says its delegation will not "hand over power to anyone". 
 
 White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US, which organised the negotiations along with the UN and Russia, was "realistic about how difficult this is going to be, but we are completely convinced that this is the only way forward". 
 
 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meanwhile called for progress on aid, besieged areas and prisoner exchanges. 
 
 Fighting between government and rebel forces is meanwhile raging on in Syria, with activists saying about 100 people are being killed each day. 
 
 More than 100,000 people have died and another 9.5 million have been displaced since the uprising against President Assad began in 2011. ||||| People stand on a street lined with damaged buildings in the besieged area of Homs January 27, 2014. 
 
 WASHINGTON Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to "moderate" Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and U.S. funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according U.S. and European security officials. 
 
 The weapons, most of which are moving to non-Islamist Syrian rebels via Jordan, include a variety of small arms, as well as some more powerful weapons, such as anti-tank rockets. 
 
 The deliveries do not include weapons such as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADs, which could shoot down military or civilian aircraft, the officials said. 
 
 The weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014, which ends on September 30, two officials said. 
 
 The apparently steady weapons flow contrasts with the situation last summer, when lethal U.S. aid to the Syrian rebels dried up for a time due to congressional reservations. 
 
 Congressional committees held up weapons deliveries for months over fears that U.S. arms would not prove decisive in the rebels' efforts to oust President Bashar Assad and his government and could well end up in the hands of Islamist militants. 
 
 A U.S. official familiar with recent developments said national security officials and members of Congress are more confident that weapons delivered to southern Syria are going to, and remaining in, the hands of moderate rebels rather than militant jihadist factions. 
 
 Congress approved funding for weapons deliveries to the Syrian rebels in classified sections of defense appropriations legislation, two sources familiar with the matter said. It was not clear when the funding was approved, but unclassified defense funding passed Congress in late December. 
 
 Some additional budget tweaks may be necessary to ensure that all the approved funding is fully available for disbursement during the current fiscal year. 
 
 Yet, officials who support providing U.S. arms to the rebels acknowledge that this has not greatly increased U.S. expectations of victory by anti-Assad forces, whether moderate or militant. 
 
 "The Syrian war is a stalemate. The rebels lack the organization and weapons to defeat Assad; the regime lacks the loyal manpower to suppress the rebellion. Both sides' external allies... are ready to supply enough money and arms to fuel the stalemate for the foreseeable future," said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA analyst and sometime foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama. 
 
 Both U.S. and European officials said that "moderate" rebels had recently consolidated their positions in the Syrian south, where they are pushing out elements linked to al-Qaeda. More militant factions remain dominant in the north and east. 
 
 Another recent development favorable to more moderate factions is that Kurdish groups that had been providing weapons and other aid financed by donors in the Gulf state of Qatar indiscriminately to both moderate and religious extremist rebel factions had greatly reduced their involvement in the arms traffic, one of the officials said. 
 
 A White House spokeswoman had no comment. Other U.S. agencies did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
 As for "non-lethal" aid like communications and transportation equipment, the United States hopes to resume deliveries to moderate groups in Syria soon, a U.S. official said on Monday. 
 
 The United States and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to northern Syria in December after reports that Islamist fighters seized Western-backed rebel weapons warehouses, highlighting fears that supplies could end up in hostile hands. 
 
 "We hope to be able to resume assistance to the SMC shortly, pending security and logistics considerations," said the official, referring to the Supreme Military Council moderate rebel group. "But we have no announcements at this time," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 
 
 Non-lethal aid was resumed to civilian groups in that region in late December. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Dan Grebler)
– Geneva talks on Syria's future have been tense—and new US support for rebels isn't helping. On Monday, Reuters reported secret Congressional approval of funding to lightly arm "moderate" Syrian rebels through September. An opposition adviser reported an "outburst" by the Syrian government's lead negotiator, Bashar al-Jaafari, after which the UN's leading mediator called off the day's discussion, the New York Times reports. Talks resumed today, the BBC reports. Syrian officials say the US is backing terrorists—which the US calls "ludicrous"—and that its support for the rebels conflicts with its diplomatic efforts in Switzerland. The Times reports yesterday's afternoon session was axed to give the government time to come up with a transitional blueprint of its own. The BBC adds government reps did share a "declaration of basic principles," but absent from it was any statement on a political transition. And negotiators haven't even been able to achieve the basic goal of suspending fighting in Homs to bring in humanitarian aid. If talks don't move forward soon, the Times notes, Western officials may seek help from the UN Security Council, hoping that an image-conscious Russia won't exercise its veto ahead of the Olympics. Meanwhile, in Syria itself: Various rebel groups—including al-Qaeda-linked extremists—have gotten hold of the lion's share of oil and gas supplies, US officials tell the Times. Extremist groups are actually selling the resources to the government, with some getting electricity or a break from airstrikes as payment, opposition activists say. They're using the resulting cash to support clashes not just with Bashar al-Assad's forces, but with each other. Syria is poised to miss a chemical weapons deadline next week, insiders tell Reuters. By then, the country is supposed to have sent all such weapons abroad to be destroyed. But so far, just 4.1% of some 1,300 metric tons of chemical agents have been sent to the relevant port in Latakia, the sources say.