Rebel training programme: facing reality

Washington ends $500mn program to train Syrian rebels – report

RT,

9 October, 2015

The Obama administration is set to overhaul the Defense Department's $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels, according to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The US president is expected to speak on the matter later on Friday.

Carter said during a Friday news conference in London that Washington has been "looking for several weeks at ways to improve" the program.

He added that he "wasn't satisfied with the early efforts" of the program, and that Washington is looking for"different ways to achieve the same kind of strategic objective."

"I think you'll be hearing very shortly from [President Obama] in that regard about the proposals that he has approved and that we are going to go forward with," Carter said following a meeting with his British counterpart Michael Fallon.

READ MORE: ‘Who are Syrian moderates & where are they?’

Meanwhile, a Pentagon official told The New York Times that the recruitment of so-called moderate Syrian rebels to go through training programs in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will end.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added that a much smaller training center will be opened in Turkey, where a small number of “enablers” – mostly leaders of opposition groups – will be taught operational maneuvers, such as how to call in airstrikes.

A separate US defense official said on Friday that the training program is not ending, but is simply being refocused. Speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, the official said that some US training and vetting of Syrian forces would continue, Reuters reported.

Speaking to RT, political analyst Dan Glazebrook said "it was obvious that something was going to have to change...my opinion has always been that this whole business about funding moderate rebels has always been a bit of a fantasy, for a number of reasons."

"There's nothing moderate about what they're being trained to do. There's nothing moderate about forming a militia and then going and killing as many police and soldiers of a sovereign state as you can. And that's assuming the best case scenario that they're only attacking police and soldiers..."

He added that it's "no great surprise that Russia has achieved more in a week of airstrikes than a 62-power coalition has achieved in a year against ISIS." 

A top US General told Congress in September that only “four or five” US-trained rebels were still fighting on the ground, with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ga.) calling the program a “total failure.”  

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the time that the small number "certainly raises legitimate questions about what kinds of changes need to be made to this program."

Senator John McCain has been a vocal critic of Obama's campaign against ISIS in Syria. 

"One year into this campaign, it seems impossible to assert that [Islamic State] is losing and that we are winning. And if you're not winning in this kind of warfare, you are losing," McCain said in September.

It comes just one day after reports of a funding bill which earmarks $600 million to support “appropriately vetted” Syrian rebels fighting against both ISIS and the Assad government. 

The $500 million training program has experienced multiple setbacks. The first group of trainees disbanded soon after being sent into combat, with some captured or killed and others fleeing. A second class of troops introduced only a small number of new fighters. The original plan, devised in December 2014, aimed to prepare as many as 5,400 fighters this year, and 15,000 over the next three years.