Saturday, September 26, 2015

DoD Confirms US-Trained Fighters in Syria Gave Arms to Nusra Front Militants

A spokesman for the Pentagon has confirmed that Syrian rebel fighters trained by the United States provided ammunition and equipment to an al-Qaeda-linked group.
 
Syrian rebel fighters trained by the United States provided ammunition and equipment to an al-Qaeda-linked group this week, a spokesman for the Pentagon has confirmed.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday around 70 participants of the US train-and-equip program returned to Syria from a training camp in Turkey over the weekend. The group that operates as the New Syrian Force (NSF) was later thought to have defected to the Nusra Front.

“Today the NSF unit contacted Coalition representatives and informed us that on Sept. 21-22 they gave six pick-up trucks and a portion of their ammunition to a suspected Nusra Front intermediary,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said as quoted by The Blaze.

Refuting the initial claims of defections among NSF fighters on Thursday, Davis previously said all coalition-issued weapons and equipment were “under the positive control” of the NSF.

Accounts allegedly associated with the Nusra Front tweeted photographs of US-made rifles on Wednesday. It was claimed the rifles belonged to the NSF.

First reports of so-called moderate Syrian fighters, which were trained to fight militant groups like the Nusra Front and the notorious ISIL jihadist group, claimed the NSF had given up arms in exchange for safe passage.

Davis said the Pentagon believed the reports that NSF fighters gave up weapons to the Nusra Front were false at the time and that the published photograph was an old “repurposed” image.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon admitted that only five out of the over 5,000 fighters trained in the $500-million US program were actually fighting on the ground. The figure was later revised to nine.

  (Sputnik)
26/9/15
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1 comment:

  1. US to abandon training for new groups of Syrian rebels...

    The US is to end its efforts to train new Syrian rebel forces and says it will shift to providing equipment and weapons to existing forces.

    Its $500m programme was heavily criticised after it emerged that US-trained rebels had handed vehicles and ammunition over to extremists.

    It emerged last month that only four or five of the fighters were in Syria.

    The Pentagon says help will now be provided to "a select group of vetted leaders and their units".

    The programme had aimed to train and equip 5,400 fighters this year and a further 15,000 in 2016.

    Of the initial two groups sent into the country, the first was rounded up by Jabhat al-Nusrah, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, in July. The second handed much of its equipment over to the same group in September, reportedly in exchange for safe passage.

    Quoting an anonymous Defence Department source, the New York Times reported that the US would no longer recruit Syrian rebels to go through its training programmes in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.

    Instead it would establish a smaller training centre in Turkey, where "enablers" - mostly leaders of opposition groups - would be taught operational manoeuvres like how to call in airstrikes, the newspaper said......BBC

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