The British government is picking up the Western-backed opposition’s $1.4 million annual tab influencing policymakers in Washington and at the American United Nations mission in New York, Justice Department records reveal. And Saudi Arabia helps get the rebel point of view in the media via the kingdom’s $8 million contract with PR giant MSL Group (formerly Qorvis).

The nonprofit Syrian Emergency Task Force, meanwhile, has relied on anonymous private donors and US and other government grants to continue building support for the revolution to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

Together, the financial disclosures offer a window into foreign intervention in a conflict that has claimed almost 500,000 lives and turned into a proxy war between powerful regional actors such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Since early 2013, the Syrian rebels have been represented in Washington by Najib Ghadbian, the special representative to the United States for the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. A British government fund known as the UK Conflict Pool in turn paid the New York-based advisory group Independent Diplomat $1.4 million last year to lobby the State Department on the group’s behalf, part of the United Kingdom’s international support for the Syrian opposition.