CIA ramping up training program for militants in Syria
Thu Oct 3, 2013
9
US
officials say the CIA is expanding a covert effort to train militants
in Syria who have been fighting the Syrian government forces for the
past two and a half years.
The CIA’s mission is expected to produce a few hundred trained militants each month, a level that US officials say will do little to bolster militant forces, according to The Washington Post.
American officials are concerned that the militants fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are rapidly losing ground in the country’s unrest, the newspaper said.
The CIA has sent additional paramilitary teams to secret bases in Jordan in recent weeks in an effort to double the number of militants getting CIA training and weapons before being sent back to Syria, officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the Post.
The CIA has trained about 1,000 militants this year, according to current and former US officials.
The CIA is “ramping up and expanding its effort,” said a US official familiar with operations in Syria, because it was clear that the militants were “losing, and not only losing tactically but on a more strategic level.”
The CIA training program was secretly authorized by the US President Barack Obama, and is limited in financing, indicating tensions in the Obama’s administration’s strategy on Syria.
On May 7, Russia and the US agreed to convene an international conference on Syria, which will serve as a follow-up to an earlier Geneva meeting held in June 2012.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on all parties involved in the Syrian crisis to take part in the Geneva-2 conference without any preconditions.
Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to the UN, more than 100,000 people have been killed and a total of 7.8 million of others displaced due to the violence.
AHT/ARA
