U.S. identifies 1,200 potential fighters for Syria training

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

U.S. identifies 1,200 potential fighters for Syria training

WASHINGTON Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:24pm EST

(Reuters) - The United States has so far identified about 1,200 Syrian opposition fighters for potential participation in a U.S. military-led program to help train and equip them to battle the Islamic State, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

The fighters will undergo vetting for the program, which is expected to begin in March at multiple sites outside of Syria and train more than 5,000 Syrian fighters a year. Some 3,000 could be trained by the end of 2015, a U.S. official said.

The program is expected to vet fighters using both U.S. government databases as well as intelligence from regional partners.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have publicly offered to host the training and Jordan has privately offered to do so. One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said training is likely to start in Jordan.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/18/us-mideast-crisis-syria-training-idUSKBN0LM2DN20150218

[Warren Stupidity]

1. just in case you aren't paying attention: our foreign policy in syria is bullshit.

we are training sunni jihadists to fight the shia regime of assad, who if they are successful will bring on a sunni theocracy in Syria, but who more likely will end up as part of isis or the next incarnation of isis, trying to establish sunni dominance across Iraq and Syria, and we are doing this while trying to exterminate the current generation of sunni jihadists who we inadvertently set up in our prior attempts to topple Assad. We are pretty much guaranteeing perpetual conflict, which just might be our goal.

[MisterP]

2. will they create a special school for 'em? and why are we fighting AND helping Damascus?

are we weak in the upper story?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation