Wow, I knew there were tons of different factions with different goals all falling under the general banner of "rebel" in Syria, but until just now I didn't know how much open conflict there is between these different groups. This BBC map makes it clear how widespread the in-fighting has become:

Guess which country I'm crossing off my potential vacation spots!

This isn't actually true. We've provided communications equipment but only very recently started providing arms (like, within the last two weeks). We claimed to be sending them weapons in June but it was a public relations stunt, the rebels never got anything. Most of their weapons from outside sources were given to them by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, possibly Turkey as well.

I was also planning a trip to Damascus a couple years ago before hostilities broke out.

I guess this must be Assad day for you, then.

I've said this before, but goddamnit, it bears repeating, if the CIA is arming rebel factions (and it's most likely that they are) they better be sending the lion's share of support to the Kurds. I remember reading something about the number of Kurdish refugees flooding into Iraq from Syria a while back and some higher ups in the Kurdish political system in Iraq saying basically they want them to stay and fight in Syria because once they leave their ethnic communities in Syria, there's absolutely no chance they'll ever get them back. and looking at that map really drives home that statement, it looks like there's just pockets of ethnic Kurdish settlements left in North Syria.

I doubt it. Most of the support is being channeled through Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Turkey is anti-Kurdish for territorial reasons and many groups the Sauds are backing are anti-Kurdish out of Arab chauvinism.

Not exactly on-topic, but the Kurds really deserve their own country somewhere. They're the largest ethnicity without one they can call their own, and they tend to get pushed around pretty badly by the countries they live in.

This. It's a result of a mix of ethnic and religious differences that results in that, but the technical theology is a little hard to get into. My bandmates are Muslim and have mentioned the reasons before but I don't remember much of it.

Erdogan will not knowingly allow arms trading to the opposition to occur alongside his southern border without an explicit promise not to provide weapons to the Kurds.

of course Turkey isn't gonna be happy with the Kurds having any kind of leverage in the region (though Iraqi Kurdistan seems to be coming along quite nicely), the Turks don't exactly have a sterling reputation for being humane to ethnic minorities in their country, and the idea of just giving them autonomy in a good chunk of East Turkey is totally out of the question, but if they can keep a decent standing in Iraq and Syria, maybe, just maybe, some day they'll get a state of their own. Trouble is, as with most mountainous people, they're much better at fighting each other than a common enemy.
found a rather entertaining article on why Kurdistan will never be it's own state http://www.exile.ru/print.php?ARTICLE_I ... LOCK_ID=35
and apologies for driving this thread further off into a "free Kurdistan" discussion.