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Obama Administration Halts Program to Train Syrians to Combat ISIS Obama Administration Ends Effort to Train Syrians to Combat ISIS
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — After struggling for years to identify groups in Syria that it can confidently support, the Obama administration on Friday abandoned its effort to build a rebel force inside Syria to combat the Islamic State. It acknowledged the failure of its $500 million campaign to train thousands of fighters and said whatever money remained would be used to provide lethal aid for groups already engaged in the battle. WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday abandoned its efforts to build up a new rebel force inside Syria to combat the Islamic State, acknowledging the failure of its $500 million campaign to train thousands of fighters and announcing that it will instead use the money to provide ammunition and some weapons for groups already engaged in the battle.
Senior officials at the White House and the Pentagon said the strategy to pull fighters out of Syria, teach them advanced skills and return them to face the Islamic State had failed, in part because many of the rebel groups were more focused on fighting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Defense Department training sites across the Middle East, including ones in Turkey and Jordan, will soon suspend almost all operations, officials said, in favor of a revamped program that briefly screens Arab rebel commanders of existing Syrian units before equipping them with much-needed ammunition and, potentially, small arms. Initial airdrops of equipment could begin as early as this weekend, officials said.
But officials said they were trying to adapt their strategy by seeking to identify the leaders of “capable, indigenous forces” in Syria who — after what the officials described as a vigorous vetting process — will be the first time the Pentagon has given military equipment to rebel leaders to distribute to their forces engaged in fighting on the ground. The C.I.A. has for some time been covertly training and arming groups fighting Mr. Assad. The decision to scuttle a central piece of President Obama’s strategy for confronting extremists in Syria was made after mounting evidence that the training mission has resulted in no more than a handful of American-coached fighters. And it comes amid Russia’s forceful entry into the Syrian conflict, a move by President Vladimir V. Putin that has highlighted the lack of progress by the United States and its coalition.
“We need to be flexible. We need to be adaptive,” said Brett McGurk, a top adviser to Mr. Obama on the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “Is it best to take those guys out and put them through training, or to keep them on the line fighting and give them equipment and support?” Senior officials at the White House and Pentagon admitted that the strategy to pull fighters out of Syria, teach them advanced combat skills and return them to face the Islamic State had simply not worked, in part because many of the rebel groups were more focused on fighting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
The shift in strategy comes amid a huge deployment of force by Russia in support of Mr. Assad, who has clung to power since the civil war began in 2011. Russian warplanes have conducted scores of airstrikes, and Moscow has fired a barrage of cruise missiles at targets in Syria. But officials said they were trying to adapt in real time by seeking to identify the leaders of “capable, indigenous forces” in Syria who would sign a pledge to fight the Islamic State group, receive some instruction on human rights and the law of armed conflict review and leave with communications gear and some help on how to call in airstrikes.
Mr. Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran, say he is a bulwark against all manner of terroists, including the Islamic State. The United States has long insisted that Mr. Assad is the problem and has to go, though possibly as part of a negotiated transition. Officials said the provision of equipment to the groups would be limited at first, but could grow depending on a rebel group’s performance. Failure on the battlefield or the loss of weapons that could fall into the hands of extremists could trigger a cutoff of military equipment, officials said. The American military has confirmed that some rebel groups had surrendered their weapons when confronted by extremists, and acknowledge that accounting for American-supplied arms across the battlefield had proved almost impossible in the past.
Pentagon officials announced what they called an “operational pause” in the training program on Friday, as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter left London after meetings with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, about the continuing wars in Syria and Iraq. Officials said they held out the possibility that some training might resume. The new program would mark the first time the Pentagon has provided lethal aid directly to Syrian rebels, though the C.I.A. has for some time been covertly training and arming groups fighting Mr. Assad.
In Washington, White House and Defense Department officials said the equipment to be provided to the rebel groups would be “basic” in nature and would not include antitank rockets or other high-end equipment that could eventually fall into the hands of groups that commit acts of terrorism against the United States or its allies. “We need to be flexible. We need to be adaptive,” said Brett McGurk, a top adviser to Mr. Obama on the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. He added later, “Is it best to take those guys out and put them through training, or to keep them on the line fighting and give them equipment and support?”
“We are very careful to provide support to groups who are not involved in that type of activity,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. For Mr. Obama, Friday’s answer to that question was a reversal of policy that underscored a harsh reality — tens of billions of dollars spent in recent years to train security forces across Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have rarely succeeded in transforming local fighters into effective, long-term armies.
But officials spoke only in general terms about their methods to monitor equipment. They said some of the groups that would receive equipment were familiar to American commanders. The president has long expressed skepticism that training Syrian rebels could resolve the political and military challenges in that country. Mr. Obama’s advisers insisted that he remained committed to a broader strategy in Syria that seeks to destroy the Islamic State even as the United States and allies pursue a political transition that pushes Mr. Assad out of power. But Mr. Obama’s critics seized on the admission of failure in the training program to demand a new strategy.
In some cases, “we have been working with these groups for months,” said Christine E. Wormuth, the under secretary of defense for policy. “We have pretty high confidence in them already.” “The administration has had a weak, inadequate policy in Syria and a weak, inadequate policy against ISIS,” said Representative Mac Thornberry, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “Adjusting one program, even if it were successful, will not solve the problem.”
The closing of the program comes as the administration’s attention is shifting to northeastern Syria, where it hopes to assemble a group of Sunni tribes in a “Syrian Arab Coalition” to fight alongside Syrian Kurdish forces against the Islamic State. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the shift in strategy was doomed because the United States is unwilling to support rebels fighting against Mr. Assad as well as against the Islamic State. He called it “inexplicable that the administration acknowledges this problem yet refuses to fix it.”
“Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is now directing the Department of Defense to provide equipment packages and weapons to a select group of vetted leaders and their units so that over time they can make a concerted push into territory still controlled by ISIL,” a Pentagon statement said of the new effort. The statement said the Pentagon would monitor the progress of these groups “and provide them with air support as they take the fight to ISIL.”
A senior defense official said that the remaining training “will be much more minimal” than the previous program. The Central Intelligence Agency runs a separate program to train and arm selected groups, many of which are now battling Syrian army units backed by Russian air power.
The new program, the official said, will begin in the next few days, though it may well run into many of the same problems of conflicting loyalties and ancient animosities that helped sink the first effort.
Anti-Assad insurgents said they have never heard of a group called the Syrian Arab Coalition, but that it seems to be the Pentagon’s name for an expansion of Burqan al-Furat, or Euphrates Volcano, the operations room that coordinates several Arab insurgent groups and the Kurdish militias. Whatever it is called, they welcomed the prospect of increased support.
“We have received large promises surrounding future military aid, and we really did begin to receive equipment,” a spokesman for Thuwwar al-Raqqa, a Sunni group that has worked with the Kurds, told the website Syria Direct.
But many Arabs, especially in northeastern Syria where there are large Kurdish populations, are wary of the Kurds’ project to carve out semiautonomous areas for their people, and have accused Kurdish militias of carrying out ethnic cleansing in the mixed area.
Ahmad Abu Bakr, an activist from Raqqa who was reached in Idlib, said that he, too, had not heard of the Syrian Arab Coalition, but said he was against any movement to cooperate with the Kurds. “For us, they are an enemy, not a friend.”
Even some Arabs who defected from the Syrian army have refused to join the grouping, he said. Kurds were part of the campaign only “because the Americans will be sending powerful weapons only if the Kurds are part of it. The U.S. doesn’t trust anyone except the Kurds.”
Officials said the equipment, which will be supplied to leaders of Syrian opposition groups, would include weapons, ammunition and communication equipment.
A senior Defense Department official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that there would no longer be any more recruiting of so-called moderate Syrian rebels to go through training programs in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Instead, a much smaller training center would be set up in Turkey, where a small group of “enablers” — mostly leaders of opposition groups — would be taught operational maneuvers like how to call in airstrikes.
While many details of the new approach still need to be worked out, President Obama endorsed the shift in strategy at two high-level meetings with his national security and foreign policy advisers last week, several American officials said.
The change makes official what those in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the administration have been saying for several weeks was likely to happen, particularly in the wake of revelations that the program at one point last month had only “four or five” trainees in the fight in Syria — a far cry from the plan formally started in December to prepare as many as 5,400 fighters this year and 15,000 over the next three years.
The shift in strategy comes as critics in Congress have increasingly demanded that the administration make changes or face the elimination of the program.
In a letter to the State Department, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. last week, four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — criticized the program. “The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote. “As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat.”In a letter to the State Department, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. last week, four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — criticized the program. “The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote. “As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat.”
The senators — Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut; Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia; Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico; and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah — were referring to the latest debacle of the program. The letter referred to a recent incident in which some of the American-trained Syrian fighters gave at least a quarter of their United States-provided equipment, including six pickup trucks and a portion of its ammunition, to the Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front.
Some of the American-trained Syrian fighters gave at least a quarter of their United States-provided equipment to the Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, the United States Central Command acknowledged in late September. White House and Defense Department officials said Friday that the equipment to be provided to the rebel groups would not include antitank rockets or other high-end equipment that could eventually cause serious damage if they fall into the hands of groups that commit acts of terrorism against the United States or its allies.
In a statement correcting earlier assertions that reports of the turnover were a “lie” and a militant propaganda ploy, the Central Command said it had subsequently been notified that the Syrian rebels had “surrendered” some of their equipment — including six pickup trucks and a portion of their ammunition — to the Nusra Front. Those rebels, unlike any who would be part of the new program, were trained and equipped outside Syria. “We are very careful to provide support to groups who are not involved in that type of activity,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser.
More broadly, the program has suffered from a shortage of recruits willing to fight the Islamic State instead of the army of Mr. Assad, a problem Mr. Obama mentioned at a news conference last Friday. Pentagon officials on Friday announced what they called the “operational pause” in the training program as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter left London after meetings with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, about the continuing wars in Syria and Iraq. Officials said they held out the possibility that some training might resume.
The administration was expected to provide classified briefings to lawmakers and their senior aides on Capitol Hill on Friday to explain the impending changes to the train and equip program. “I wasn’t happy with the early efforts” of the program, Mr. Carter said during a news conference with Mr. Fallon. “So we have devised a number of different approaches.”
“The opposition and their regional backers wanted the program, they just couldn’t accept ISIS as the priority and U.S. ambiguity on taking out Assad,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Like in the Iraq war, you can’t expect people to fight on your behalf unless you give them what they want. We got the politics wrong yet again.” The changes make official what those in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the administration have been saying in the wake of revelations that the program at one point last month had only “four or five” trainees fighting in Syria — a far cry from the plan formally started in December to prepare as many as 5,400 fighters this year, and 15,000 over the next three years.
The shift in strategy comes as Mr. Obama has approved two important steps to set in motion an offensive against the Islamic State in northeastern Syria in the coming weeks. “There are many, many individuals in Syria who want to fight the regime,” said Christine E. Wormuth, the under secretary of defense for policy. “We were focused on identifying individuals who wanted to fight ISIL. And that’s a pretty challenging recruiting mission.”
Mr. Obama ordered the Pentagon, for the first time, to directly provide ammunition and perhaps some weapons to Syrian opposition forces on the ground. He also endorsed an idea for an increased air campaign from an air base in Turkey, although important details of that plan still need to be worked out. Several dozen opposition fighters already at the training sites are likely to complete their instruction — learning to help call in allied airstrikes and operate 122-millimeter mortars — and they will be placed in opposition groups in Syria to enhance their combat effectiveness, officials said.
Together, these measures are intended to empower 3,000 to 5,000 Arab fighters, a conglomeration of 10 to 15 groups, who would join more than 20,000 Kurdish combatants in an offensive backed by dozens of coalition warplanes to pressure the Islamic State in Raqqa, the militant group’s main stronghold in Syria. But even as they shutter the existing program, the administration is hoping to bolster groups already fighting in Syria. In part, American attention is shifting to northeastern Syria, where it hopes to assemble a group of Sunni tribes in a “Syrian Arab Coalition” to fight alongside Syrian Kurdish forces against the Islamic State.
American military officials have screened the leaders of the Arab groups to ensure that they meet standards set by Congress when it approved $500 million last year for the Defense Department to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels. Anti-Assad insurgents say they have never heard of a group called the Syrian Arab Coalition, though they welcome the prospect of increased support. “We have received large promises surrounding future military aid, and we really did begin to receive equipment,” a spokesman for Thuwwar al-Raqqa, a Sunni group that has worked with the Kurds, told the website Syria Direct.
Under the shift in strategy that emerged on Friday, the administration would now focus more of its efforts on equipping these Arab fighters and inserting some of the trained Syrian rebels within their ranks. But many Arabs, especially in northeastern Syria where there are large Kurdish populations, are wary of the Kurds’ project to create semiautonomous areas, and have accused Kurdish militias of carrying out ethnic cleansing in the mixed area.
Ahmad Abu Bakr, an activist from Raqqa who was reached in Idlib, said that he had not heard of the Syrian Arab Coalition, but that he was against any movement to cooperate with the Kurds. “For us, they are an enemy, not a friend,” he said.
Even some Arabs who defected from the Syrian Army have refused to join the group, he said. Kurds were part of the campaign “because the Americans will be sending powerful weapons only if the Kurds are part of it,” he said. “The U.S. doesn’t trust anyone except the Kurds.”
The new program will only arm Arab groups, and not Kurdish forces, out of deference to Turkish concerns, officials said. American officials said Friday that coalition air power would support the new Syrian Arab allies on the ground, just as those planes have helped Syrian Kurdish fighters over recent months.
The new program will begin in the next few days, officials said. While many details still need to be worked out, Mr. Obama endorsed the shift in strategy at two high-level meetings with his national security and foreign policy advisers last week.
The administration was expected to provide classified briefings to lawmakers and their senior aides on Capitol Hill on Friday to explain the changes to the train-and-equip program.
Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the failure of the training mission was another example of the United States misunderstanding the real dynamic in a foreign country.
“The opposition and their regional backers wanted the program, they just couldn’t accept ISIS as the priority and U.S. ambiguity on taking out Assad,” Mr. Tabler said. “Like in the Iraq war, you can’t expect people to fight on your behalf unless you give them what they want. We got the politics wrong yet again.”