Remember how the Obama administration assured Congress that Syrian rebels would be vetted before being trained and armed by the U.S. Army?
It promised that only Moderate” rebels fighting the Assad regime would receive training and arms from the United States, but an entire rebel division that was part of the Obama administration’s “train and equip” program has turned over its weapons to the Al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, the London Telegraph reported.
Division 30, the first unit to be graduated in the U.S. training program to help fight the Islamic State (ISIS) but not the Assad regime, handed over a very large amount of ammunition and medium weaponry and a number of pick-ups,” according to a tweet by an al-Nusra member.
The report was confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which stated that 75 Division 30 fighters crossed from Turkey into Syria with four-wheel vehicles equipped with machine guns and ammunition bought with U.S. taxpayers’ money.
Last month, the first group of 54 U.S.-trained fighters re-entered Syria and promptly suffered a defeat at the hands of Al Nusra, which kidnapped several rebels.
In a hearing last week at the Senate Armed Forces Committee, U.S. Central Command General Lloyd Austin admitted that only “four or five” fighters remain as fighters against the ISIS in Syria.