US announces 400 Syrian rebels approved for training program
The US military has announced it has selected the first 400 moderate rebels to be trained to battle against ISIL (Daesh) in Syria, with a target date set as early as September for them to join the fight.
The Pentagon said on Friday that US military and intelligence agencies are currently conducting background checks on these men, which is is part of a US plan to train and equip more than 5,000 fighters for Syria, where a four-year civil war has already left more than 210,000 people dead.
The background checks are expected to include fingerprints, retina scans as well as other biometric measurements to find out if any of the candidates are on terror watch lists.
“If all goes well, we expect they’ll be finished with training in late summer or early fall,” said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
According to Warren, a pre-screening will be done lasting one week and that will be followed by deeper background checks lasting over six weeks.
The 400 militants, who have been identified by name, were chosen from among 2,200 and the US is currently “compiling big data” on them, he explained.
He noted that the 2,200 militants were recommended “mainly by tribal leaders and Free Syrian Army leaders we have been dealing with for some time,” referring to the Western-backed rebels fighting in Syria.
The background probes for the other 1,800 will begin in the near future, he added.
The announcement was the first official statement about the US-led campaign to equip and train Syrians in fight against the ISIL terrorists four months after Congress approved a budget of $500 million on the program.
Warren said that over 350 American troops have arrived in Turkey and other neighboring countries in preparation for the training.
The United States plans to finish the training of 3,000 Syrians by the end of 2015 and an additional 5,000 by next April, he noted.
Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011. The United States and its regional allies – especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – have supporting rebels attempting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are accompanied by Iranian soldiers and Shiite militias.
Daesh militants, meanwhile, control large parts of Syria and Iraq and operate against a backdrop of US-led, international air strikes on their positions in both countries. On February 19, Washington and Ankara inked an agreement to train and arm moderate militants in Syria to fight the group from the ground.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said in February that Ankara hopes the training deal will strengthen the besieged rebels fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, though the US-led train and equip program has not yet outlined goals to also target the embattled president’s regime.
Editors note: This article has been edited from source material for Al Bawaba
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