After a week marred by U.S.-trained rebels being captured or killed soon after re-entering Syria, analysts warned that recruiting new troops will be so difficult that the training program may collapse — after spending more than $40 million to train just 54 fighters.
Saturday marked one year since the first U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State. While the U.S. air campaign has conducted more than 4,600 strikes throughout Iraq and Syria, officials agree that some type of ground force is critical to permanently defeating the Islamic State. Moderate Syrian rebels trained by the U.S. to fight the Islamic State were supposed to be a key part of that force.
“We do need another ground force,” said Jennifer Cafarella, Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “The Kurds alone won’t be sufficient, and trying to build another from scratch by the U.S. has failed.”
In addition to the problems in Syria, the program has struggled to recruit Syrian fighters, who must pass an in-depth vetting process and promise to fight only the Islamic State, not the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Only 54 Syrians have completed the program, despite the Obama administration saying it would train 5,000 fighters this year.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said he expects the number of trainees to “increase significantly over time” as Syrians see the high-quality training volunteers receive and the vetting process improves.
But Nicholas Heras, a Middle East researcher at the Center for New American Security, said the problems in the early stages of the train-and-equip program may prevent it from even getting off the ground.
“It risks being strangled in the cradle,” he said.
Col. Pat Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, acknowledged that Syria is a challenging environment for troops to operate in, but said the program continues to see volunteers.
“Success does not hinge on one event,” he told reporters at the Pentagon Friday.
One of the biggest problems facing U.S.-backed troops are attacks from al Nusra, a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda, experts said. Many rebel fighters in Northern Syria don’t want to provoke an attack from al Nusra by joining the U.S., especially when the U.S. promise of defensive protection fell short earlier this month when one fighter was killed and five were captured by al Nusra terrorists.
That incident will make it even more difficult to recruit, Cafarella said.
“Recent events only make it less likely that moderate Syrian rebels will opt into the program. The low numbers indicate that this program alone will be insufficient to effectively combat ISIS,” she said. “We simply don’t have the numbers.”
The U.S. had spent more than $41 million as of May 30 to train the 54 Syrians, according to the Pentagon, including the five who were captured last week and one who was killed in an attack earlier this month. Davis said the high price tag was largely for start-up costs.
Even a top Syrian commander is criticizing the U.S. training program. Capt. Ammar al Wawi, a former Syrian officer who led troops trained by the U.S., told BBC the program is moving so slowly that it will take “decades” to produce a viable fighting force.
Cafarella said the administration’s current strategy to train and reinsert Syrian fighters has “fundamental flaws” and said the military should look at working with other rebel fighting groups in northern Syria that the U.S. currently can’t partner with because of their ties to al Nusra.
Heras also said the U.S. should work with other rebel groups while the number of trained Syrian fighters grows to “more than 500 or 1,000, a legitimate brigade or battalion of fighters.”
