Pentagon Ending Program to Train, Equip Syria Rebels

“It’s not halting the program”, added Brett McGurk, the deputy special envoy for the anti-ISIS effort.

Rebels and analysts tracking the conflict had long written the program off by the time the USA announced its official demise.

The abandoned training program in Syria was part of a $500-million initiative requested by the White House in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act to train 5,400 Syrian rebel forces for three years.

[The Syrian commander who surrendered equipment to militants]. “So that is exactly the kind of example we’d like to pursue with other groups in other parts of Syria going forward”. “That’s how we will mitigate the risk”.

In London, Mr Carter told reporters an announcement was forthcoming.

“The work we’ve done with the Kurds in northern Syria is an example of an effective approach where you have a group that is capable and motivated on the ground, so that you can enable their success”, Carter said. Instead of combat training for the rebels, they will now be used to identify IS targets on the ground for U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.

Washington was forced on Friday to admit the failure of its plan to create Syrian rebel units to fight the Islamic State (IS) group, vowing instead to arm select local leaders.

The aim is to work with established rebel units “so that over time they can make a concerted push into territory still controlled by ISIL”, said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. But from the start, it stumbled through a number of high-profile disasters, culminating late last month when the head of U.S. Central Command admitted that after six months of planning and training, only “four or five” U.S.-trained rebels remained on the ground in Syria. The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss details of the program, did not know whether the Pentagon would also provide arms to the rebel forces. However, the suspension means that there will be no new recruits or training.

“Greater than 90 percent of the strikes that we’ve seen them take to date have not been against ISIL or al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists”, US State Department Spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday.

“Right now, I think given the complexities of the situation, we’re going to take sort of an operational pause” in the train and equip program, Wormuth said.

The United States would also provide air support to rebels as they battle Islamic State, Cook said.

The NSF program was a disastrous failure, with two “classes” of rebels sent to Syria, numbering around 125 in all, and accomplishing nothing. The US military program also failed to attract enough recruits, with many candidates being declared ineligible and a few even dropping out. While consistently calling on Assad to step aside, the USA has avoided any direct antagonism with Assad’s regime.

A senior US defense official, speaking condition anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said the program is not being abandoned or ended completely.

Well, half-assing the response to ISIS wasn’t the model either, but it looks like we’re doubling down on that strategy while we stand aside and let Vladimir Putin prop up Bashar al-Assad for the Iranians.