American Backed Syrian Rebel Group Has ‘Four or Five’ Syrians Left Fighting

It is not clear what happened to all of the initial group attacked in northern Syria – some were killed, others captured, while the rest scattered.

The first group of 54 U.S.-trained Syrian fighters was sent into Syria in late July.

Jeff Sessions added: “We have to acknowledge this is a total failure”.

“Despite some slow movement at the tactical level, we continue to make progress across the battlespace in support of the broader USA government strategy to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL”, Austin told the assembled committee.

Austin said Kurds coordinating with Sunni Arabs in northeast Syria near the Turkish border have retaken more than 17,000 square kilometers of terrain from the Islamic State over the past several months.

In his first public remarks about the allegations, Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that he welcomed the investigation but could not comment directly until the review was over.

It was a dramatic moment in the hearing: the Obama administration has consistently said there would be no American boots on the ground in Syria, and now the top USA commander for the Mideast appeared to be saying that there were. “It’s a small number“, Austin said.

The Central Intelligence Agency estimates the number of Islamic State fighters at between 20,000 and 31,500, double to triple the estimate from 2014. “And I’m just anxious this is one of those instances where the good news about our military is dominating, ‘we can do this, we can do this, ‘ and the practical realities of this strategy aren’t being fully embraced”.

“We certainly are looking at our recruiting and screening procedures all of the time”, she testified. (The US had originally planned to have 5,400 fighters trained by now.) Wormuth said the USA military was considering alternative plans but refused to say what those plans were or when they may be rolled out.

The new approach is created to intensify military pressure on Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the so-called caliphate the Islamic State has established across much of Syria and Iraq.

One military source who witnessed the skewing of reports and told NPR he was “a victim of them” said that analysts at CENTCOM got the message as they began writing their assessments of events on the ground.

John McCain said the failure had resulted in the Syrian refugee crisis. An additional 100 to 200 are in training outside Syria. Under withering questioning from Mr. McCain, Gen. Austin repeated that he would not recommend establishing such a safe zone “at this time”.

When asked whether Obama still had confidence in Austin, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “Of course, he does”. Austin said the Iraqis must recruit and retain new forces or gains will be limited against the Islamic State. Johnny Heald, ORB global managing director, said that the poll “includes those people living under the control of the regime, under the control of the so-called Islamic State [ISIS], [Al-Qaeda affiliate] al-Nusrah, the wider opposition and the YPG [Kurdish fighters]”.