Ankara's Esenboğa Airport hub for ‘weapon transfer’ is there a 'Benghazi Connection'?

Ankara's Esenboğa Airport hub for ‘weapon transfer’ is there a 'Benghazi Connection'?(HD).Turkey and Arab nations, helped by the CIA, have dramatically increased military aid to Syrian rebels in recent months, The New York Times reported yesterday.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was helping their efforts, the newspaper added, citing air traffic data and interviews with unnamed officials and the rebel commanders. The airlift has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboğa Airport near Ankara, and at other Turkish and Jordanian airports, the report said.

U.S. intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, it said. They had also vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.

Turkey had overseen much of the program, fixing transponders to trucks ferrying the military goods through Turkey so it could monitor shipments, the paper added. “A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,” Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told the paper. “The intensity and frequency of these flights,” were “suggestive of a well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation,” he added. Hmmmm..........Turkish Envoy Playing Role of Middle Man in Arms Trafficking to Yemen.Read the full story here, more here.

Related: Was Syrian weapons shipment factor in ambassador’s Benghazi visit?

On the night of Sept. 11, in what would become his last known public meeting, Stevens met with the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and escorted him out of the consulate front gate one hour before the assault began at approximately 9:35 p.m. local time.
Although what was discussed at the meeting is not public, a source told Fox News that Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate a weapons transfer, an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists. And although the negotiation said to have taken place may have had nothing to do with the attack on the consulate later that night or the Libyan mystery ship, it could explain why Stevens was travelling in such a volatile region on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
When asked to comment, a State Department spokeswoman dismissed the idea, saying Stevens was there for diplomatic meetings, and to attend the opening of a cultural center.
A congressional source also cautioned against drawing premature conclusions about the consulate attack and the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria via Turkey -- noting they may in fact be two separate and distinct events. But the source acknowledged the timing and the meeting between the Turkish diplomat and Stevens was "unusual."
According to an initial Sept. 14 report by the Times of London, Al Entisar was carrying 400 tons of cargo. Some of it was humanitarian, but also reportedly weapons, described by the report as the largest consignment of weapons headed for Syria's rebels on the frontlines.
"This is the Libyan ship ... which is basically carrying weapons that are found in Libya," said Walid Phares, a Fox News Middle East and terrorism analyst. "So the ship came all the way up to Iskenderun in Turkey. Now from the information that is available, there was aid material, but there were also weapons, a lot of weapons."
The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPG's and Russian-designed shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS.

2. What was Ambassador Steven's role in the Gun Running?