US program to train Syrian rebels losing ground

[webfact]

US program to train Syrian rebels losing ground
By ROBERT BURNS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military's program to train and equip thousands of moderate Syrian rebels is faltering, with fewer than 100 volunteers, raising questions about whether the effort can produce enough capable fighters quickly enough to make a difference in the war against the Islamic State.

The stated U.S. goal is to train and equip 5,400 rebels per year, and military officials said last week that they still hope for 3,000 by year's end. Privately, they acknowledge the trend is moving in the wrong direction.

On June 26, 2014, the White House said it was asking Congress for $500 million for a three-year train-and-equip program. The training, however, only got started in May after months of recruiting and vetting of volunteers.

That program, together with a more advanced but also troubled parallel effort to rebuild the Iraqi army, is central to the U.S.-led effort to create ground forces capable of fighting IS without involving U.S. ground combat troops.

The Syria initiative is intended to enable moderate opposition forces to defend their own towns against the IS militants, not to form a national resistance army. Expectations for the Iraqis are much higher; the goal is to have them roll back IS and restore the Iraq-Syria border.

The main problem thus far has been finding enough Syrian recruits untainted by extremist affiliations or disqualified by physical or other flaws. Of approximately 6,000 volunteers, about 1,500 have passed muster and await movement to training camps in other countries. Citing security concerns, the Pentagon will not say exactly how many are in training.

Officials said that as of Friday, the number in training had dropped below 100 and that none has completed the program. Dozens who were initially accepted have been sent home during training or quit because of revelations about their background or other problems, according to two senior U.S. defense officials. They were not authorized to discuss details and spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We have set the bar very high on vetting," said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata, the Central Command special operations commander who is heading the program, wants volunteers with more than a will to fight.

"We are trying to recruit and identify people who ... can be counted on ... to fight, to have the right mindset and ideology," and at the same time be willing to make combating IS their first priority, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told the House Armed Services Committee on June 17.

"It turns out to be very hard to identify people who meet both of those criteria," Carter said.

Many Syrian rebel volunteers prefer to use their training to fight the government of President Bashar Assad, the original target of their revolution. While IS has been a brutal occupant of much of their country, the rebels see the extremists as fighting a parallel war.

Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, doubts the viability of the training program.

"It is simply difficult to acquire the number of Syrian rebels willing to participate in the training under current parameters," she said.

Abdul-Jabbar Abu Thabet, commander of Aleppo Swords Battalion, a moderate faction that is fighting both Assad's forces and IS, said he believes the Americans are more interested in recruiting Syrian army defectors than moderate rebels.

He said he would no longer give Americans the names of training candidates from his group, after having done so once and not receiving a U.S. response.

"The Americans are saying they want to train rebels to fight against Daesh only," he said by telephone from northern Syria, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. "The fighting should be against Daesh, the (Assad) regime and everyone who is against the revolution."

The Pentagon announced in May that it had begun training 90 recruits in Jordan, but it has refused to give details. Defense officials, however, said last week that training also is underway in Turkey. Eventually it is to be expanded to bases in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Each trainee is receiving a U.S. stipend of between $250 and $400 a month, with the amount set by their skill level, performance and leadership role, said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Navy Cmdr. Elissa Smith.

The Pentagon also is wrestling with how to support those who complete the training and are sent back into Syria. Also, there are questions about how to avoid having their U.S.-supplied arms fall into the wrong hands inside Syria.

"So these constraints that we put on ourselves, which are perfectly understandable, do progressively limit the number of inductees into the program," Carter told Congress. "And that's proving the thing that limits the growth of the program."

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same House hearing that "within the next couple of months" the administration will have to decide what kinds of post-training support the Syrian rebels will receive. He said the Pentagon is considering several forms, including intelligence, communications, logistics and battlefield airpower.

U.S. officials have pointed to the Syrian Kurds' successes in the north as an example of what U.S. airpower can enable when coupled with a credible, reliable ground force. But it does not answer the question posed by Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., to Dempsey.

When she asked him whether the rebel training program is worth continuing, he offered something less than a ringing endorsement.

"It's a little too soon to give up on it," Dempsey said.
___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-06-30

[ezzra]

Is there a wonder why is it so? when your own president bombing his own people with chemical

weapons and drops explosive barrels on his own cites and villages, that some of the very soldiers

must have hailed from....

Who do you really fight? Al Qaida, Jabhat El Nusra, the free Syrian army? just to name a few...

If I were a potential Syrian conscript, I'd run away as far as my legs can take me and hide until

the stupidity and madness of this war will pass....

[ABCer]

Logic is good! I mean really 'good'!

But those at White House and Pentagon should ask themselves:

"Is there one group in any country in the last 60 years armed and trained by USA who didn't turn against them?"

Americans should stay home and maybe, just maybe! they could clean up their own mess there.

[quandow]

Is there a wonder why is it so? when your own president bombing his own people with chemical

weapons and drops explosive barrels on his own cites and villages, that some of the very soldiers

must have hailed from....

Who do you really fight? Al Qaida, Jabhat El Nusra, the free Syrian army? just to name a few...

If I were a potential Syrian conscript, I'd run away as far as my legs can take me and hide until

the stupidity and madness of this war will pass....

I tried adding a "like this" to your tally but apparently there is a daily maximum allowed now.

[quandow]

<snip>

Americans should stay home and maybe, just maybe! they could clean up their own mess there.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I tried adding a "like this" to your tally but apparently there is a daily maximum allowed now. I hope this is just a temporary glitch.

[thaibeachlovers]

So, once again the US trains people to fight that in the future will attack the west.

Does no one in the US government ever learn anything?

[arjunadawn]

So, once again the US trains people to fight that in the future will attack the west.

Does no one in the US government ever learn anything?

Lets expand this a bit; 2014 was when white ops training began. In 2014 a number of factors moved the topics to the mainstream and pols got interested it seeing something done. Capitalizing on this, Obama et al moved to propose a solution, that was really no solution at all. What was proposed was basically the same black bag project that had been training in and around the King Abdullah counter terrorism training facility under other guises. By this action this just moved black, or grey, to a white fiasco, but it was always a fiasco. If I was only speculating I might not have a leg to stand on, but I am not. This is the evolution of this training crap. The notion that there was ever a free Syrian army is about as ludicrous as the exile Iraqis who asserted WMD, the Iranian opposition in exile, and certainly the Syrian diaspora asserting some of the bad guys fighting Assad or less bad, and can be managed with the proper incentives, after all, Assad is the goal. No, this is fundamentally misleading. Assad is the next goal, or the interim goal, but Assad was never the only goal.

Islamic Jihad has a demonstrable, published, well know long standing plan that first acts to unseat illegitimate Arab/Muslim rulers as a first goal, secondly they seek to unify as a caliph, and 2nd/3rd opposition/destruction of the little and greater satan. This has been true for a very long time, long before 9/11.

The US, either as an act of wholesale ignorance of wild abandonment of steadfast principles has effectively switched sides on the war on terror long before this training of FSA/others went from black to white. While black or grey, weapons and monies were routed under the cover of black-ops, arms shipments not unlike Iran-contra, and other State actors payed or enticed to assist. When Benghazi fell a boon was tossed into the mix regarding congressional oversight and the black moved to white as the politicians screamed "more effort." The same sick game-plan now transferred directly through DOD DOS and other players without middlemen, under the cover of legislation. It is the same thing. It has never worked and only thus far granted DAESH lands larger than UK, wealth larger than most state actors, legitimacy, staying power, and validates the jihad claims to longevity and the fulfillment of prophecy. Most of DAESH is funded by the US. The only people who dont accept this are in the West. In this case ignorance will not lead to bliss.

With about 18 months left, were Obama et al to wind down, roll back the clock, and even aim for parity or neutrality with the Mideast Third Great Jihad center of gravity, at least not being worse off than before he arrived, he could never make the target. In other words, if Obama either all out warred upon DAESH or all out rolled back any assistance to al Nursa/FSA/IS or other indirectly, there are no set of outcomes that will leave the west better than when Obama and Clinton began meddling. This cannot be won in 18 months. It cannot be lost in 18 months. Facts on the ground may change dramatically, but not enough to roll back to a state prior to Obama involvement in 18 months. Therefore, it is hard to see how there has not been a massive transfer of wealth, technology, legitimacy, weapons, and credibility to islamic jihad under the paternal eyes of the US administration and their cover for action nonsense of an Arab Spring. Extrapolate this premise a few degrees of separation further and it is abundantly clear this is a widespread phenomena of Obama policies across the globe. There has been a widespread, inexorable elevation of the legitimacy of a caliph, a transfer of means toward that end, and a stubborn obfuscation of the facts to the people represented.

Edited June 30, 2015 by arjunadawn

[IAMHERE]

So, once again the US trains people to fight that in the future will drop their weapons on the battle field and run away.

Does no one in the US government ever learn anything?

[simple1]

Jordan is preparing to set up a security zone in southern Syria to prevent a jihadi victory in the area, carving out the first humanitarian “buffer zone” for rebels and refugees in four years of civil war.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ead1961a-1e38-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#axzz3eY29tpag

BTW has anyone read this report, is it verifiable?

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092

[willyumiii]

So, once again the US trains people to fight that in the future will drop their weapons on the battle field and run away.

Does no one in the US government ever learn anything?

Drop your weapons and run away.....

Live to buy more weapons another day!.

It is good business for US arms dealers and contractors.

Yes, I think the US is aware of this.

War = Profit

Ask Cheney and Haliburton.

Edited June 30, 2015 by willyumiii

[Credo]

Jordan is preparing to set up a security zone in southern Syria to prevent a jihadi victory in the area, carving out the first humanitarian “buffer zone” for rebels and refugees in four years of civil war.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ead1961a-1e38-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#axzz3eY29tpag

BTW has anyone read this report, is it verifiable?

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092

Is the report verifiable? It's as verifiable as any other silly prediction about the ME. I can give you a prediction, and that is that after ISIS is defeated there will be another acronym for another group of Islamic terrorists and it will the fault of the US that they exist, even if the US has long ago scaled way back in the ME, which is exactly what Obama has been doing.

No matter what is done, it will be because the US is involved and if they aren't involved it will because they didn't get involved.

Please remember this, because this closer to the European doorstep than much of the rest of the world.

[arjunadawn]

In Baghdad there was a (at least one) program to try to track and limit weapons sales on the blackmarket. There were various tools to do this but the simplest was just the serial numbers and long term surveillance of weapons and numbers. At the same time there was a need to train Iraqis with the weapons they would be confronted with, the same ones on the secondary markets, and varying restrictions on end user licenses prevented lots of weapons from arriving from the US or arriving timely. Weapons were purchased to both dry up the market and to train various forces. Again going through US hands the serial numbers were tracked, weapons distributed to trainees, and training commenced. These weapons repeatedly turned up later from enemy contact, the weapons confiscated, and the serial numbers accounted for a again. These weapons routinely made there way into the black market. It was not uncommon for a solider to have his weapon taken from him when he went home by a more senior or distinguished local person. In fact, more highly trained soldiers/police were often given glock sidearms. These stand out dramatically against the axis type weaponry found in Iraq. Very often these weapons would also be recovered far from where they were issued or employed. Now it is pointless as all of the US weaponry, NATO weapons, are in functional use by DAESH while Iraqis still maintain antiquated soviet weaponry. It would be ridiculous to expect that weapons supplied to any actor in this area of operations would not immediately or later be used against US forces. If one asserts this is not the case, they should be immediately fired. Of course it is.