Commander Of U.S.-Backed Rebels Captured By Al-Qaeda Militants In Syria

[Purveyor]

Source: Washington Post

By Karen DeYoung July 30 at 6:33 PM

The commander of a U.S.-backed Syrian rebel group has been captured by al-Qaeda militants near the spot north of Aleppo where a new contingent of U.S.-trained Syrian opposition fighters entered the country earlier this month from Turkey, the group said Thursday.

Nadim al-Hassan, whose fighting unit is known as Division 30, was picked up with a number of his forces in northwestern Syria by Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, which has been active in the area along with a range of other opposition forces.

Pentagon officials said that none of the approximately 60 U.S.-trained fighters under Hassan’s command were among those captured. “I can tell you that the New Syrian Force personnel that are a part of our training program are all present and accounted for and none have been detained or captured,” said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesman.

But a U.S. official familiar with the training program, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said that the capture was “definitely a setback” for U.S. and Turkish plans to use Division 30 fighters to help direct airstrikes against Islamic State forces and establish a rebel-controlled safe zone in the area.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/commander-of-us-backed-rebels-captured-by-al-qaeda-militants-in-syria/2015/07/30/d90aef92-36f4-11e5-9739-170df8af8eb9_story.html

[Purveyor]

1. Related: Abduction of U.S.-linked Syrian rebel commander a blow to fight against ISIS

By Mitchell Prothero and James Rosen
McClatchy Newspapers

In an apparent setback for the Obama administration’s campaign against Islamic State extremists, Al Qaida’s branch in Syria has captured a commander of a new U.S.-trained anti-jihadist force and several fighters, according to Turkish officials and Syrian rebels.

The abduction, confirmed on the ground but with details disputed by the Pentagon, underlines the risk the United States incurs by fielding a force in a battlefield so messy that a group trained to target one set of jihadists is seized by a rival set of jihadists before it even really began fighting enemy No. 1, the Islamic State.

Accounts of the incident from Turkish officials, Syrian rebels, Turkish media and a posting on the commander’s Facebook page, offer this sequence of events:

On Wednesday, Nadim Hassan, head of the 30th Division rebel faction, and several of his men were meeting in the vicinity of Azaz, near the Turkish border. Nusra gunmen arrived in pickup trucks and detained Hassan and his companions; it is unclear how many of other men seized also were involved in the U.S. government’s $500 million “train-and-equip” effort. Some accounts said the men were taken during lunch; others claim it was on the road after the meeting.

“The total number of kidnapped is 23 and about 18 are from the T&E group,” said Yusuf Salih, a Turkmen commander of the Sultan Murad Brigade rebel faction. His figures couldn’t be independently verified. “Five are from the 30th, but not from the T&E program. They were in consultation with each other in Azaz.”

In interviews with local and international media before his abduction, Hassan had confirmed his involvement in the program, which has been widely criticized as too small and too slow to effectively combat the Islamic State.

Hassan’s 30th Division was set up to absorb graduates of the U.S. training effort, though it’s been delayed because of a lengthy vetting process and the reluctance of Syrian rebels to sign up to fight the extremists when their main goal is toppling the Assad regime in Damascus.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article29598640.html#storylink=cpy