The U.S. is abandoning its goal of training a new force of Syrian rebels and will now focus on equipping, arming, and supporting established groups already fighting against the Islamic State (IS) group inside Syria, the Yahoo News website reports today (October 9, 2015).
The change reflects the failure of the current approach, which has produced only a handful of combat-ready rebels and drawn widespread criticism in Congress.
Officials said the new approach would focus on equipping and enabling established Kurdish and Arab rebel groups, rather than recruiting and vetting a new cadre of rebels, training them in Turkey and Jordan and re-inserting them as an infantry force into Syria.
The $500 million Congress provided last year for the program will be used more for equipping select rebel groups inside Syria, with limited training activity.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment