BEIRUT – The head of Syria’s rebels said Friday that the food and medical supplies the United States plans to give his fighters for the first time won’t bring them any closer to defeating President Bashar Assad’s forces in the country’s civil war.

“We don’t want food and drink, and we don’t want bandages. When we’re wounded, we want to die. The only thing we want is weapons,” Gen. Salim Idris, chief of staff of the opposition’s Supreme Military Council, told The Associated Press by telephone.

The former brigadier in Assad’s army warned that the world’s failure to provide heavier arms is only prolonging the nearly 2-year-old uprising that has killed an estimated 70,000 people.