US considers changes in Syrian train-and-equip program

WASHINGTON

The U.S. will make changes to a train-and-equip program for Syrian opposition groups as the program failed to produce effective results in the fight against Daesh, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. 

"We've been candid that the initial phase of this program did not lift off with the kind of efficiency that we'd hoped," Peter Cook told reporters. "We've learned lessons from that, continue to learn lessons from that."

Cook said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter views moderate Syrian forces as a critical component of the fight against Daesh and has been looking into possible options to expand and enhance the efficiency of the Syrian rebel groups.

"We're going to tweak the program, make adjustments as we go," the spokesman added without providing specifics of any potential changes. 

The Pentagon exploration of possible changes came after al-Nusrah Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate, attacked a group of 54 Syrian fighters who had graduated from the train-and-equip program in late July. A day prior to the attack, two leaders of the trainee group and several of its fighters were captured by al-Nusrah.

The U.S. has trained just 54 Syrian rebels in the course of half a year. The encounter with al-Nusrah revealed several deficiencies with the trainees’ ability to defend themselves and their intelligence gathering capabilities.

Cook said the U.S. has spent $41.8 million dollars as of May 30 to fund the training of Syrian opposition fighters, adding that the comptroller is still working to update this amount. 

He said that while Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Jordan have each publicly pledged to host a training sites, training has been conducted only in Turkey and Jordan.

Two classes are now currently in training, bringing the total number of train-and-equip program classes to three, said Cook, who declined to provide details about the number of trainees and amount of sites.