Syrian Rebels Recruit New Fighters at Refugee Camp

Syrain rebels in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan freely acknowledge recruiting fighters in the camp, trying to bolster rebel ranks in the face of stepped up offensives by President Bashar al-Assad's forces just across the border in southern Syria. Recruiting is banned in Zaatari, and the rebel activities put Jordanian officials and UN officials running the camp in a delicate position. Wary of further increasing tensions with the government in Syria, Jordan has sought to keep its support of rebels under the radar, officially denying that any training of anti-Assad fighters takes place on its soil, though both Jordanian and US officials have acknowledged it does.

For the UN, the recruitment mars what is supposed to be a purely humanitarian mission of helping the streams of Syrians fleeing the civil war at the camp, which is home to more than 100,000 Syrian refugees. When an AP reporter told the head of the UNHCR's Jordan office and a Jordanian Cabinet official of the overt recruitment, both expressed surprise. But an AP reporter visiting Zaatari found rebels from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army unabashed in talking about their search for new fighters, which they say has brought in dozens of recruits in past months. "Zaatari is an exporter of fighters," says one former rebel. "We see civilians maimed, our homes destroyed and our relatives jailed, tortured or killed, so we react by recruiting and training people to fight the tyrant government back home." Click through for the full AP report. (More za'atari stories.)