Saturday, September 26, 2015
Boy, can we pick them or what?
Having promised to vet the recruits carefully and indoctrinate them during training and then denying stories of Syrian "moderate" rebels turning their coats when set loose in the wild, the Pentagon has admitted that the stories are all too true.
In another embarrassing setback for one of President Barack Obama’s centerpiece strategies for defeating the Islamic State, the Pentagon said Friday that the commander of U.S.-trained Syrians appears to have turned over his pickup trucks and weapons to al Qaeda militants in exchange for protection within days of re-entering his homeland.Well, there you go, it was a violation of program guideline so when they return, they are looking at a court martial at the least. That should teach them.
The Pentagon admission represented an abrupt reversal of its position as recently as Wednesday, when American military officials firmly denied social media reports that a U.S.-backed commander had defected to Nusra Front, Syria’s al Qaida affiliate, and provided trucks and weapons to the radical Islamic group.
“Unfortunately, we learned today that the New Syrian Force unit now says it did in fact provide six pick-up trucks and a portion of their ammunition to a suspected al-Nusra Front (representative),” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday evening.
Two days earlier, Davis had stated: “The folks that are part of the New Syrian Force are accounted for, as are their weapons.”
The new revelations angered American military leaders.
“If accurate, the report of New Syrian Force members providing equipment to al Nusra Front is very concerning and a violation of Syria train-and-equip program guidelines,” said Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, chief spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which runs American military operations in the Middle East.
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