75 US-trained rebels enter Syria from Turkey to fight ISIS, activists say
by Compiled from Wire Services
BEIRUTSep 20, 2015 - 12:00 am GMT+3
by Compiled from Wire Services
Sep 20, 2015 12:00 am
Seventy five Syrian rebels trained by the United States and its allies to fight ISIS have entered northern Syria since Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.
Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Observatory, said the rebels had crossed into Syria from Turkey with 12 vehicles equipped with machine guns.
According to the Observatory, the rebels crossed through the Bab al-Salama border point, the main gateway for fighters and supplies heading into Aleppo province.
That supply route has been increasingly targeted by ISIS terrorists seeking to cut off support to rival rebels.
Abdulrahman said the newly-trained fighters have deployed to support two US-backed units, with most assigned to Division 30 -- the main unit for US-trained fighters -- and others to a group called Suqur al-Jabal (Falcons of the Mountain).
Before the fresh batch of fighters, the US-led train-and-equip program had only managed to vet and train some 60 rebels to fight ISIS terrorists on the ground.
The $500 million program run out of Turkey has been fraught with problems, with more than a dozen of those already deployed with Division 30 either killed or kidnapped by Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate, Al-Nusra Front.
On Wednesday, US General Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that only "four or five" US-trained rebels were on the ground fighting in Syria.
The program, which had originally aimed to train around 5,400 vetted fighters a year for three years, has come under fire from US lawmakers.
Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte said the low number of fighters being trained was a "joke."
The U.S. military began training in May for up to 5,400 fighters a year, in what was seen as a test of President Barack Obama's strategy of having local partners combat ISIS terrorists and keep U.S. troops off the front lines.
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