Ambassador Robert Ford, the State Department’s point man on Syrian policy, crossed into northern Syria on Wednesday. The secret visit was confirmed by Syrian activists at the media office at the Bab Al Salama crossing on the Turkish frontier.
Ford met with the head of the Aleppo military council, Abdul Jabbar Okeidi, who thanked him for the shipment of non-lethal aid. Seven trucks transported some 65,000 MREs, or meals ready to eat, the U.S. military’s battlefield rations. Syrian activists posted a video of the aid delivery.
Ford has made similar high-profile diplomatic gestures. As U.S. ambassador to Syria, he traveled to the protest town of Hama in 2011 and enraged the Syrian government for traveling outside Damascus without permission from the Syrian Foreign Ministry.
