The U.S. military began training Syrian fighters to take on Islamic State militants, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday, stressing that those rebels selected for the program were already heavily vetted.
The U.S. is starting out by training 5,000 fighters and is hoping to expand that total to more than 15,000 troops in a major test of President Obama’s strategy against the Islamic State.
As of yet, there is no timeline for when the initial set of troops will deploy, Carter told reporters Thursday.
“The question of the first disposition of those forces will be decided later by the commander of the training operation and us,” he said. “That decision has not been made yet.”
The program already faces criticism from Iraqi and other leaders that the training effort is too little to late to curb the Islamic State’s grip on regions of Syria and parts of Iraq.
Several skeptics also have questioned whether the fighters will target Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s forces, even though they have been trained to target only Islamic State forces.
The U.S. is not at war with Syria, and several lawmakers doubt whether the U.S.-trained troops will be able to keep their aim directed at the Islamic State amid Syria’s messy civil war.
They also question whether U.S.-trained rebels will be able to fight back if attacked by Assad’s forces.
Carter on Thursday said if the forces are contested by Assad regime forces, the U.S. “would have some responsibility to protect them.”
“We would absolutely work to protect them,” he said, noting that any U.S. role would likely involve air supply assistance.
But he was also clear that the forces “are being trained and equipped to fight [the Islamic State] – that is the purpose and the basis on them being vetted and trained.”
“They are not being asked by us, and it’s not part of our program to have them engage Assad’s forces,” he said.
