Molhem Barakat/Reuters
Free Syrian Army fighters preparing mortars to fire at forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
WASHINGTON — Just a month before a peace conference that will seek an end to the grinding civil war in Syria, the Obama administration's decision to suspend the delivery of nonlethal aid to the moderate opposition demonstrated again the frustrations of trying to cultivate a viable alternative to President Bashar al-Assad.
The administration acted after warehouses of American-supplied equipment were seized Friday by the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist fighters who have broken with the moderate, American-backed opposition, but who also battle Al Qaeda.
Administration officials said that the suspension, confirmed on Wednesday, was temporary and that the nonlethal aid, which is supplied by the State Department, could flow again.
But with rebels feuding with one another instead of concentrating on fighting Mr. Assad, and with the United States still groping for a reliable partner in Syria, the odds of any peace conference breaking the cycle of bloodshed appeared to have dimmed. For the White House, which has pinned its hopes on a political solution, the fracturing of the opposition raises a number of thorny questions, including whether the United States should work more closely with Islamist forces.
Some experts on Syria said the episode called into question not only the effectiveness of the moderate groups the United States has supported in Syria for the last two years but also the administration's broader strategy for forcing Mr. Assad to yield power.
"For all practical purposes, the moderate armed opposition that the administration really wanted to support — albeit in a hesitant and halfhearted way — is now on the sidelines," said Frederic C. Hof, who as a State Department official worked on plans for a political transition in Syria and is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Under such circumstances, Mr. Hof said, the prospects for major progress at the peace conference were "pretty grim."
In the murky events of last Friday, American and opposition officials said, the Islamic Front also seized the northern Syrian headquarters of Gen. Salim Idris, the leader of the military wing of the moderate Syrian opposition, formally known as the Supreme Military Council. According to American officials, General Idris was in Turkey, where he has a house, when the headquarters was taken over and then left for Qatar, which has provided money and weapons to the resistance. He is now said to be back in Turkey.
American officials are still struggling to assess what the internecine battle means. "If we're able to understand that, we could revert to the provision of nonlethal assistance," a senior administration official said.
The official said that the United States would not rule out talks with the Islamic Front, but that it was too soon to determine whether the administration would abandon its insistence that all American and allied assistance be funneled through the Supreme Military Council.
For months, Secretary of State John Kerry has argued that a political solution is the only answer for a civil war that has already led to the deaths of more than 100,000 Syrians. His goal is to encourage a handover of power from Mr. Assad to a transitional government.
But Mr. Assad, who has received substantial military support from Iran and Russia, seems as entrenched as ever.
At the same time, the opposition groups that the Obama administration has designated as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people appear to have grown weaker, in part because of their tenuous ties to many of the rebel fighters inside the country and because of the lukewarm support they have received from the West.
The Syria peace conference, which Mr. Kerry originally thought would be held last May, is now scheduled for Jan. 22. It had been planned for Geneva but is to be shifted to the lakeside Swiss town of Montreux because Geneva hotel rooms have been booked for a luxury watch fair.
A major aim of the meeting is to begin the process of identifying Syrians who might serve in a transitional governing body that would run the country if Mr. Assad yielded power.
Michael R. Gordon and Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon.
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