People watch as smokes rises from the town of Kobani, also known as Ain al-Arab, at the Turkish border near the southeastern village of Mursitpinar, Sanliurfa province, on Oct. 26, 2014. 
 
 People watch as smokes rises from the town of Kobani, also known as Ain al-Arab, at the... Read More 
 
 People watch as smokes rises from the town of Kobani, also known as Ain al-Arab, at the Turkish border near the southeastern village of Mursitpinar, Sanliurfa province, on Oct. 26, 2014. Close 
 
 Turkish traders of everything from Red Bull energy drinks to cement are profiting from Islamist conquests in Syria, while the militants are boosting their coffers with fees from the cross-border business. 
 
 Turkey shipped $1.3 billion in goods to Syria through September, the highest nine-month total on record, according to trade statistics published in Ankara last week. The increase came after President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus lost control of most border crossings with Turkey, leaving them to rebel groups such as the Free Syrian Army and Islamic Front, as well as Islamic State extremists. 
 
 “Whoever controls either side of any international border claims license to exact tolls and fees,” said Francis Ricciardone, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and now a director at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East in Washington. “Where there is no law, criminal gangs will extort all that the market will bear.” 
 
 Turkey’s Continental Divide 
 
 The exchange of goods reflects how entrenched the Syrian conflict has become and how elusive any peace agreement remains. The fighting, which started in March 2011 and flared into a civil war, has left more than 190,000 people dead and displaced millions, according to the United Nations in August. 
 
 Photographer: Kemal Karagoz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images More than $260 million this year crossed via Cilvegozu and Oncupinar, the Turkish figures show. They are towns adjacent to Bab al-Salamah and Bab al-Hawa in northern Syria, which are controlled by the Islamic Front, a coalition of militants fighting both the Assad regime and Islamic State. Close More than $260 million this year crossed via Cilvegozu and Oncupinar, the Turkish... Read More Close Open Photographer: Kemal Karagoz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images More than $260 million this year crossed via Cilvegozu and Oncupinar, the Turkish figures show. They are towns adjacent to Bab al-Salamah and Bab al-Hawa in northern Syria, which are controlled by the Islamic Front, a coalition of militants fighting both the Assad regime and Islamic State. 
 
 While Turkey imposed financial sanctions on Assad three years ago, the trade is legal and shows up in Turkish customs data. Transporters enter a no-man’s land where state control is absent and they pay whoever controls the crossing. 
 
 Energy Drinks 
 
 “Every day we have four or five trucks carrying Red Bulls to Syria,” Mustafa Yilmaz, owner of Turkish trucking company Cem-Ay Transport, said in a telephone interview on Oct. 28. 
 
 More than $260 million this year crossed via Cilvegozu and Oncupinar, the Turkish figures show. They are towns adjacent to Bab al-Salamah and Bab al-Hawa in northern Syria, which are controlled by the Islamic Front, a coalition of militants fighting both the Assad regime and Islamic State. Another $320 million in goods crossed into Syria from nearby Gaziantep, according to the figures. 
 
 Buyers on the Syrian side don’t identify themselves to the transporters, Yilmaz said. Goods are then transferred onto Syrian trucks in a 3-kilometer-wide (2 miles) zone at the Cilvegozu crossing, he said. 
 
 Turkish Customs Ministry press officer Yakup Bulut said on Nov. 3 nobody was available to comment. The Economy Ministry didn’t respond to written questions this week. 
 
 Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg While the U.S. has pushed Turkey to join the fight against Islamists across the border, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his nation will participate only if the U.S.-led coalition also makes plans to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Close While the U.S. has pushed Turkey to join the fight against Islamists across the border,... Read More Close Open Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg While the U.S. has pushed Turkey to join the fight against Islamists across the border, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his nation will participate only if the U.S.-led coalition also makes plans to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 
 
 Displaced People 
 
 The Aleppo Chamber of Industry rejected the idea of an increase in trade. Fares Shihabi, head of the organization, said imports from Turkey plunged about 90 percent because of the war. 
 
 “There are no functioning routes,” he said by telephone from Damascus. “Let’s assume there’s regular trade, there’s no war, they’re not supporting the terrorists and everything is normal. The size of the market has shrunk because 3 to 4 million people are outside the country.” 
 
 Aleppo is less than 30 miles as the crow flies from the Cilvegozu border crossing. Shihabi’s views contrast with Ali Altinel, a partner at Syrian Trade Office, a business consultancy in Aleppo. Demand for Turkish goods is so high that trucks can wait five days at the frontier, he said. 
 
 “The Syrian state takes 40 percent in taxes, but in other areas there’s no such thing,” Altinel said by phone from the Turkish port city of Mersin on Oct. 28. “Islamic State also takes its extortion fees, everyone does. As long as people are getting paid, there’s no danger.” 
 
 Turkish Policy 
 
 While the U.S. has pushed Turkey to join the fight against Islamists across the border, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his nation will participate only if the U.S.-led coalition also makes plans to topple Assad. 
 
 Turkey allowed Kurdish fighters from northern Iraq to travel to the Syrian city of Kobani to help defend it against Islamic State. Erdogan is also advocating training and arming fighters from the Free Syrian Army, which cooperates with Islamist fighters to control some of the border points with Turkey, according to Charles Lister, a specialist in Middle East insurgents at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. 
 
 “Groups are widely known to take transit fees from incoming trucks and this has come to represent a key internal revenue stream,” he said by e-mail this week. “This is unfortunately reinforcing the war economy that rebel groups have become so dependent upon.” 
 
 Deliberate Effort 
 
 The surge in exports may represent a “success story” in that the U.S. and other suppliers of humanitarian relief to Syria are “deliberately procuring as much as possible from the Turkish economy,” according to Ricciardone, the former ambassador. That’s part of a concerted effort to offset some of the costs of the war, he said. 
 
 Turkish exports to Syria were $1.3 billion in 2011, the year Syria’s civil war began, then fell to $391 million a year later, according to official data. Erdogan said Nov. 3 that Turkey has spent $4.5 billion hosting more than a million refugees in the country. 
 
 The latest records from Turkey’s statistics agency now show everything from vegetable oils to motorcycles being shipped into Syria. The largest amount was listed in a miscellaneous category titled “personal household goods, provisions.” 
 
 Some of that recent increase may also reflect Syrian industrialists switching factories to Turkey since 2011 and then exporting products back home. 
 
 No Choice 
 
 “Many Syrian businessmen moved their production lock, stock and barrel to Turkey because it is safer,” Henri Barkey, a Turkey expert at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, said by e-mail on Nov. 3. “The war is damaging so much of the infrastructure and the agricultural sector that the Syrians have no other choice but to increase their imports from Turkey.” 
 
 In choosing to continue doing business with armed groups at the border, Turkey is accepting the reality that it may not have an official government counterpart to deal with in Syria for some time, according to Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation. 
 
 “Turkey will probably have to live with non-state actors on its southern border maybe for a decade, if not more,” Ozcan said in a phone interview on Nov. 3. “Merchants are forced to deal with several different groups, like in the Middle Ages, as their goods pass through their territory.” 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: Fercan Yalinkilic in Istanbul at fyalinkilic@bloomberg.net; Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul at bharvey11@bloomberg.net; Ercan Ersoy in Istanbul at eersoy@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net Rodney Jefferson ||||| ISTANBUL The United States and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to northern Syria after Islamist fighters seized Western-backed rebel weapons warehouses, highlighting fears that supplies could end up in the wrong hands. 
 
 The rebel Free Syrian Army fighting President Bashar al-Assad said the U.S. and British moves were rushed and mistaken. "We hope our friends will rethink and wait for a few days when things will be clearer," FSA spokesman Louay Meqdad said. 
 
 In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States was concerned about reports that Islamic Front forces had seized the buildings belonging to the Syrian Military Council, which is nominally in charge of the FSA. 
 
 "As a result of the situation ... the United States has suspended all further deliveries of non-lethal assistance into northern Syria," Earnest said, adding that humanitarian aid was not affected by the move. 
 
 The suspension underlines a crisis for the FSA leadership, which needs international backing to reinforce its credibility and to stop its fighters joining al Qaeda-backed Islamist militants who now dominate the war with Assad. 
 
 Fighters from the Islamic Front, which groups six major rebel brigades and which said last week it had quit the FSA, seized the headquarters of the Syrian Military Council and weapons warehouses at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on Syria's northwestern border with Turkey. 
 
 A U.S. official said FSA leader General Salim Idriss had fled into Turkey during the takeover of the warehouses, which contained trucks, food, medical packs and communication equipment including laptops and radios. 
 
 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based anti-Assad monitoring group, said the Islamic Front had seized anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons from the SMC arms stores in fighting on Saturday. 
 
 The Islamic Front's battlefield success in capturing the stores could undermine SMC assurances to the United States that no supplies sent to their fighters would fall into the hands of Islamist brigades. 
 
 A U.S. embassy spokesman in Ankara said the situation was being investigated "to inventory the status of U.S. equipment and supplies provided to the SMC". Deliveries into southern Syria, through Jordan, would not be affected, he said. 
 
 Five rebel fighters were killed in the clashes at Bab al-Hawa, but it was not clear which side they were on. 
 
 REBELS PLAY DOWN INFIGHTING 
 
 American aid, including trucks, ambulances and ready meals, reaches Syria overland through Turkey. 
 
 U.S. officials said in the summer that they had developed a system of distribution using SMC operatives that would ensure the aid reached U.S.-allied groups. The United States has been concerned the non-lethal aid should not reach Islamists. 
 
 A senior U.S. administration official said the suspension should not be misinterpreted. 
 
 "This is absolutely not the beginning of the U.S. washing its hands. We will remain engaged in the humanitarian effort. We will remain engaged in the diplomatic effort," the official said, adding: "This doesn't represent a change in policy in our support for the moderate opposition." 
 
 He said the administration was looking for other ways to see how the support can be provided to ensure it does not fall into the hands of "extremists". 
 
 The British wanted the situation clarified after the clashes. "We have no plans to deliver any equipment while the situation remains so unclear. We will keep this under close review," a spokesman from the British embassy in Ankara said. 
 
 Turkey shut its side of the border crossing in Hatay province, customs sources told Reuters, citing a reported increase in clashes on the Syrian side. There was no immediate confirmation from Turkish officials. 
 
 Wednesday's announcement does not affect humanitarian support because this is distributed through aid groups and the United Nations. The first U.N. relief airlift to Syria from neighboring Iraq will deliver food and winter supplies to the mostly Kurdish northeast over the next 10 days. 
 
 The 2-3/4 year conflict has killed more than 100,000 people, driven more than 2 million abroad as refugees and left many millions more dependent on aid. 
 
 Playing down the fighting between the Islamic Front and the FSA brigades as a "misunderstanding", the FSA's Meqdad said Idriss was talking to the front's leaders to try to resolve the confrontation. 
 
 Asked whether any FSA stock was missing Meqdad said: "Everything will be clear in the next hours, and we believe the Syrians are good people and we don't believe there was a problem. They are our brothers." 
 
 Infighting among Syrian rebels has weakened their efforts to bring down Assad in a conflict that began with peaceful protests against his rule in March 2011 and has descended into civil war. 
 
 "EXTREMISTS" THREATEN REBEL UNITY 
 
 "I ... want to underline that our support to the opposition remains undiminished," the British embassy spokesman said. 
 
 "We have been long-standing and strong supporters of General Idriss and the SMC. That remains the case. It is important that the SMC remains united in the face of attacks from the regime and from extremist groups. 
 
 "Otherwise this will be a setback for all Syrians who support a political solution and a democratic, pluralist future for their country." 
 
 Assad's army, backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group and Iraqi Shi'ite fighters, has made steady gains around Damascus and to the north of the capital, while rebel territory in the north has seen increasing cases of inter-rebel conflict. 
 
 Many activists who helped to organize protests against Assad have now fled abroad from rebel-held territory, fearing not Assad's security forces but hard-line Islamists they say are equally intolerant of dissent. 
 
 Prominent human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh was kidnapped in the rebel town of Douma, activists said on Tuesday. They said it was not clear who had seized the 36-year-old activist, who has documented human rights violations in Syria. 
 
 The family of two Spanish journalists said on Tuesday they have been held since September by fighters linked to al Qaeda. 
 
 Fifty-five journalists have been killed and 30 are still missing in Syria, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, making the country the most dangerous place in the world for media workers. 
 
 (Writing by Dominic Evans, additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Roberta Rampton in Washington, and Yara Bayoumy in Dubai, editing by Peter Millership, Will Waterman and David Stamp)
– Red Bull gives you wings, and if you're an Islamic militant, apparently, extra stamina to keep fighting. Turkish traders are shipping the energy drink and other items into Syria across borders that are controlled by rebels belonging to ISIS, the Free Syrian Army, and the Islamic Front, and business is apparently booming: According to trade stats out of Ankara, Turkey sent $1.3 billion in goods to Syria through September, its highest total for a nine-month period ever recorded, Bloomberg reports. Those who wield power over the border—and right now that's militants in at least three border towns—are the ones who reap the profits, pocketing tolls and fees from transporters. While Turkish customs and economy officials either wouldn't comment or didn't respond to Bloomberg, the owner of a Turkish trucking company said that "every day we have four or five trucks carrying Red Bulls to Syria." He adds that those picking up the goods on the Syrian side don't ID themselves, and the imports are then loaded onto Syrian trucks and driven away. Meanwhile, caffeinated militants may also be fortified by the "good wives of jihadi": The Independent recently documented a new ISIS media arm that posts and tweets out nursing, morale, and cooking advice for militants' wives, including recipes to "replenish the mujahidin." (Here's how you can get your portion of a $13 million Red Bull payout.)