75 US-trained rebels enter Syria from Turkey: Monitor
A batch of 75 rebels newly trained by US and coalition forces in Turkey to fight the Islamic State have entered northern Syria, a monitoring group told AFP on Sunday.
"Seventy-five new fighters trained in a camp near the Turkish capital entered Aleppo province between Friday night and Saturday morning," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said the group had entered in a convoy of a dozen cars with light weapons and ammunition, under air cover from the US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.
This is the second time that US-trained troops are believed to have entered Turkey, with the $500mn train and equip programme causing controversy in July when the Nusra Front captured, injured or killed more than 20 members of so-called Division 30.
The US military began training in May for up to 5,400 fighters a year, in what was seen as a test of President Barack Obama's strategy of having local partners combat Islamic State militants and keep US troops off the front lines. However, before the new batch of fighters, the US-led train-and-equip programme had only managed to identify and train some 60 rebels to fight IS on the ground.
A top US general told Congress on Wednesday that only four or five Syrian rebels trained under the programme aimed at fighting Islamic State were still fighting in Syria.
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