US to begin training of 'moderate' Syrian fighters in Jordan

The first of 400 United States military trainers have arrived in Turkey and Jordan, in preparation for training hundreds of members of Syrian "moderate" opposition fighters against the Islamic State group.

According to US defence officials, only 400 out of over 3,000 opposition fighters who have articulated their interest in joining the training program were approved and passed the preliminary security screening.

The training will include battlefield tactics, medical gear, radios and small arms. The program’s purpose for training opposition fighters is for them to return to defend their towns and to combat IS from taking over more territory in Syria.

The clear objective of the training is aimed at curtailing the spread and influence of IS, and does not address fighting the Syrian government in any way.

The US will provide the opposition fighters with weapons, vehicles, and tactical radios for communication on the ground. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an American security official told AFP that the training will ultimately spread to sites in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

In February, the US and Turkey signed a deal to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition fighters against IS. The deal at the time did not mention the specific date for when the training program will begin. Some US officials are mindful of the risk that some of the trained fighters would direct their distributed weapons against the Syrian government forces.

Yet in previous statements, Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made known his expectations that the trained fighters will also have a role in fighting the Syrian government. Turkey’s training program included Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the north of Iraq to fight against IS militants.

The head of the Syrian National Coalition, Khaled Khoja, has asked the US for some logistical and military support against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s forces, stressing the need for protection from the Syrian army’s aerial bombardment.

“We have the capability and the ability to fight against the terrorism and against the terror led by the Syrian regime,” Khoja said, “but we need to include much more fighters from the FSA (Free Syrian Army) in this program and we need to have it much more faster.”

Khoja has called the US support in fighting groups in Syria against Assad’s forces as “too small and too slow.”

“It’s very weak support,” he continued. “What we need is to have our own military equipment in order to defend the freed areas. Since we did not receive any kind of this sophisticated arms we cannot defend the people from the barrel bombs thrown by the Assad regime.”

The US training program is expected to train only 5,000 opposition fighters a year, with the Congress approving $500 million for the program.

Analysts have pointed out that Jordan will not be publicly discussing the training on its ground due to regional sensitivities.