U.S. to Detail Major Changes to Syrian Rebel Training Program

The New York Times first reported the move. The Obama administration is also now considering Turkey’s proposal that the US aid a separate force of Arab fighters that would fight alongside Kurdish militias to march on ISIS’s capital in the eastern city of Raqqa.

Moscow is mounting air strikes and missile attacks that it says are aimed both at supporting its longtime ally Assad and combating Islamic State.

Obama has previously questioned the notion that arming rebels would change the course of Syria’s war.

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.

Either way, there will be no increase of USA troops into the Syrian fight, officials made clear.

As of May 30, the US has spent $41.8 million as to fund the training of Syrian opposition fighters, according to the Pentagon.

“We’re going to take sort of an operational pause”, said Pentagon policy chief Christine Wormuth.

High profile setbacks, including reports of rebels defecting or disappearing; and of fighters who graduated from the program handing over their equipment to other opposition groups, have not helped to build confidence for a successful outcome. Last week, a commander of one of the U.S.-trained rebel units turned over a half-dozen US vehicles to extremist militants.

Obama’s critics unfavorably compare his resolve in Syria – where a US-led coalition is bombing IS and putting political pressure on Assad – to Putin’s.

Carter is now directing the Department of Defense to provide equipment packages and weapons to a selected groups to make a push into territory controlled by Islamic State forces, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a prepared statement.

London the US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter spoke, he was not satisfied with the work of the program from the beginning and said they had developed several different methods.

How short? “We’re talking four or five” fighters still in the field, Austin said. The official declined to say how many Syrian rebel leaders would be trained.

Carter gave no details, but he and other officials suggested that the new effort might also shift toward embedding recruits with established Kurdish and Arab units, rather than sending a newly-created force straight into front-line combat.

The Pentagon has been equipping and training groups who oppose both Islamic State Group and the Syrian government, nearly since the conflict began in 2011, with the aim of training 15,000 insurgents.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are planning to step up arms supplies to Syrian rebel groups that are being targeted by Russian airstrikes, diplomats have told the Guardian.