US halts failed program to train Syrian rebels

Washington was forced Friday to admit the failure of its plan to create Syrian rebel units to fight Daesh, vowing instead to arm select local leaders.

White House and Pentagon officials insisted the "pause" in efforts to train Syrian fighters outside the country would allow them to re-focus their efforts elsewhere.

"We've had some significant challenges," said Christine Wormuth, undersecretary of defense for policy.

"So we're going to pause the training we've been doing where we've recruited specific individual fighters."

But, as President Barack Obama's Syria strategy stumbles from one setback to the next, the suspension of the $500 million train and equip effort was an embarrassment.

Obama's Republican foes, like Texas Congressman Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, were quick to twist the knife.

"The administration has had a weak, inadequate policy in Syria and a weak, inadequate policy against Daesh," he said as the news broke.

"Adjusting one program, even if it were successful, will not solve the problem."

"Today, the Obama administration acknowledged what we have known for some time: the training of Syrian rebels is a failure," declared Senator Deb Fischer.

Pentagon officials told reporters that instead of training rebel units, the US military would dole out weapons to favored commanders already on the ground.

- 'A joke' -

The White House and Defense Secretary Ash Carter scrambled to portray this as a way to re-focus the strategy to increase pressure on the Islamic State.

"The model before was we were training infantry-type units," a senior US defense official told AFP.

"We are now changing to a model that will produce more military combat capability."

The official declined to say how many leaders would be armed and trained, but noted the new effort would get under way "within days."

Two small groups of US-trained fighters have crossed into Syria from training centers in Turkey or Jordan this year, but they did not last long.

The first broke up after coming under attack from the Al-Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda franchise.

The other surrendered much of its equipment, perhaps a quarter of its trucks and guns, to Al-Nusra.

Last month CENTCOM commander General Lloyd Austin admitted that after the debacle only "four or five" Pentagon-trained rebels remain active in Syria.

This attracted derision from US lawmakers, who said the program should be scrapped altogether. Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte said the number was a "joke."

But the Pentagon insisted the train and equip program was only one plank of the overall effort, and noted that it has long been arming groups already inside Syria.

- Combat power -

Carter cited the success of US-backed Kurdish militias in breaking the Islamic State's siege of the border town of Kobane as a model for future operations.

"We have devised a number of different approaches," he said at a news conference in London.

"I believe the changes we are instituting today will, over time, increase the combat power of counter-Daesh forces in Syria," he insisted.

Brett McGurk, one of Obama's special envoys coordinating the coalition to fight Daesh, said using existing rebel factions would be more efficient.

"Is it best to take those guys out and put them through training programs for many weeks? Or to keep them on the line fighting, and to give them additional enablers and support?" he asked, rhetorically.

In fact, the Pentagon had found it very hard to find recruits who would agree to focus their efforts on Daesh group rather than Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

The United States has demanded Assad step down in order to allow a political settlement to the civil war and the creation of a transitional government.

But Assad has powerful support from Iran and Russia, and President Vladimir Putin has dispatched troops and jets to provide direct military support to his ally.  

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

But, in an interview with CBS News 60 Minutes, the US president insisted his leadership in the region was not being challenged.

"If you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in, in order to prop up your only ally, is leadership, then we've got a different definition of leadership," he said of Putin's gambit.
Source: AFP