No details were immediately available, but the $500 million (€440 million) Pentagon-run training programme, designed to help moderate Syrian rebels fight the Islamic State (IS) group, is widely considered a failure. It has produced fewer than 80 soldiers, many of whom had fled, been captured or killed in early fighting.
Speaking at a news conference in London, Carter said the new US effort would take a “more strategic approach”, hinting it would seek to enable Syrian rebels in much the same way the United States has helped Kurdish forces in Syria to successfully battle the IS group.
"The work we've done with the Kurds in northern Syria is an example of an effective approach," he said. "That's exactly the kind of example that we would like to pursue with other groups in other parts of Syria going forward."
US officials have said the new effort would focus more on embedding recruits with established Kurdish and Arab units, rather than sending them directly into front-line combat.
They would be equipped with US communications gear and trained to provide intelligence and to designate IS group targets for airstrikes in coordination with US troops outside of Syria, the officials said.
US President Barack Obama will disclose more details later Friday, Carter said.
“I think you’ll be hearing very shortly from him in that regard about the proposals that he has approved and that we are going to go forward with.”
Earlier Friday, the New York Times reported that the US was set to scrap the effort to train Syrian rebels entirely.
However, a senior US defense official, speaking to reporters travelling with Carter, said the changes to the programme did not amount to it being scrapped, adding that there would be some training and vetting of Syrian rebels in the future.
Embarrassing setbacks
The overhaul would clearly turn a new page on what had been a failed experiment for the US military.
In May, the US military began training up to 5,400 fighters a year in what was seen as a test of Obama’s strategy of having local partners combat IS group militants and keep US troops off the front lines.
But the programme has been beset by a series of embarrassing setbacks, with the US struggling to find significant numbers of moderate rebels to take part.
Last week, a commander of one of the US-trained rebel units turned over a half-dozen US vehicles to extremist militants.
"We have been looking for several weeks now at ways to improve the programme," Carter said. "I wasn't satisfied with the early efforts in that regard."
The decision to overhaul the programme comes at a time when the US and its Western allies are seen as being in danger of surrendering the initiative in Syria to Russia, after Moscow launched its own military intervention in the country.
Russia has said it shares the West’s aim of fighting the IS group and other extremists, but fighters on the ground and western states have accused it of targeting US-backed rebels in order to bolster Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, REUTERS)
france24.com
9/10/15
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