Those who favor international weapons shipments have been scrambling in recent days to convince the United States and other countries that the rebels can address their main concerns: keeping weapons from falling into the hands of Islamic extremists and from fueling sectarian violence.  Saudi Arabia, which will have representatives at the Friends of Syria meeting in Istanbul, has been a proponent of arming the rebels, and on Friday The Wall Street Journal reported that the kingdom was pressing Jordan, and offering it aid, to open its borders to allow rebel-bound weapons deliveries.  Jordan has denied the report, but it has added to the anxiety over the issue ahead of the gathering of Western and Arab countries in Istanbul on Sunday. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on her way to the meeting, discussed Syria with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah in Riyadh on Friday.  Any shipments, especially from Saudi Arabia, would raise regional tensions and risk spreading the conflict, since Syria’s main backer is Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival. Such as move would also play into the Syrian government’s argument that the uprising is fueled by foreign powers.  Opponents and proponents of foreign arms shipments to the rebels agree on the same set of intractable problems, mainly that the armed opposition is decentralized, with groups of army defectors and volunteers largely fending for themselves to obtain weapons.  But backers say that despite such issues, there is an urgent need to establish a centralized supply line to the rebels because Islamist groups like the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood are already arming some factions, and are gaining disproportionate influence.  “The longer we delay, the more chaos we will face,” said Ammar Qurabi, a prominent opposition figure who broke with the main exile opposition group, the Syrian National Council, in part over its inability to get international military support for the opposition.  Akil Hashem, a former senior officer in the Syrian armed forces, quit his role as military adviser to the council over his frustration with its inability to bring armed groups under its control.  He said in a recent interview that Muslim Brotherhood members on the council were obstructing efforts to centralize financing for the opposition because they wanted to directly control the Free Syrian Army, which is currently more of a loose coalition of armed opposition groups than a unified force.  “They’re working for the future, hoping that the Tunisia and Egypt scenario repeats itself in Syria,” Mr. Hashem added, referring to postrevolt elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood offshoots in those countries emerged as the most powerful political forces.  On Friday, Mr. Hashem said he still supported arming the opposition and direct foreign military intervention. He said he understood the fears that arms could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda or other extremist groups but said that diplomacy was failing as both President Bashar al-Assad and his opposition refused to back down.  Mr. Hashem added that the rebel groups would make serious efforts to control the arms, perhaps by registering each weapon to fighters according to their Syrian identification numbers and giving arms only to those who belong to a disciplined unit.  But skeptics say that such assurances are unrealistic. Haitham al-Manna, a Paris-based leader of an opposition group with members inside and outside Syria, said that adding more weapons would be “very dangerous” and that decentralized rebel groups could not be expected to control weapons given to them.  “If what we hear is true, this is an irresponsible attitude from the Saudis,” said Mr. Manna, who opposes the use of force by the opposition and is staying away from the Istanbul meeting. He said some rebel groups were led by extremist Salafi groups, and that others had used child soldiers or foreign fighters, accusations that could not be independently verified.  The opposition has already made attempts at coordination.  In a video shown on Al Arabiya satellite television on Friday, a man identified as a Syrian Army defector with the rank of colonel said that the armed opposition had formed military councils in cities across Syria that would work with the Free Syrian Army leadership abroad.  But some prominent opposition leaders questioned whether the military councils truly represented the entire spectrum of the opposition.  Haitham al-Maleh, a respected lawyer who also left the Syrian National Council, said in an essay published this week in City A.M., a London business newspaper, that the plan to centralize coordination was carried out in secrecy.  “The recent announcement of an S.N.C. military bureau to coordinate the rebels was made without consultation with the Free Syrian Army, the main armed group,” he said.  Mr. Maleh, who said the Muslim Brotherhood enjoyed disproportionate influence on the council, said he was also concerned because he wanted all ethnic and religious groups to feel included in planning Syria’s future.  In the video shown on Al Arabiya, the defecting colonel said that military councils had been formed in the cities of Homs and Hama, as well as in Idlib, Damascus and Deir al-Zour. Those areas of the country exclude many of the areas where Alawite and Druse minorities predominate.  The majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims while the government is dominated by Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect, and both the government and the rebels accuse each other of sectarian motives in the fighting.  Reporting was contributed by Hala Droubi and Hwaida Saad from Beirut; Ranya Kadri from Amman, Jordan; Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul; and Steven Lee Myers from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Fierce fighting continued on Friday in Syriaâs north and center two days before the so-called Friends of Syria coalition was set to meet in Istanbul in an effort to end the crisis.