WASHINGTON: Training and equipping moderate Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State extremists will take months, the White House warned yesterday a day after Congress approved the plan.
“We will move out as rapidly as can be done, in partnership with the countries that will host the training facilities,” said Susan Rice, national security adviser to President Barack Obama.
“This will be a process that takes months,” she said, adding it will not “happen overnight.”
“This is a serious training program, and we are serious about vetting those that we will be training and equipping,” Rice emphasised.
“It is not something that one should expect will yield rapid and immediate fruit,” she said, though she did not giving a specific timeline. The plan adopted by US Congress envisions equipping and training moderate Syrian rebels to take on the ground offensive against the IS group in Syria.
Obama has vowed he will not deploy US troops on the ground in the fight against the militants, either in Iraq or Syria.
The plan, however, does not give free rein to Obama — it requires the administration to submit a progress report every 90 days with the number of rebels trained, which Syrian groups have been chosen to participate and how the supplied weapons and equipment were used. One of the main groups likely to receive US aid is the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, a large coalition formed late last year with a secular stance.
It was set up after the establishment of the Islamic Front, Syria’s largest rebel alliance bringing together various strains of Islamists.
AFP
