US-trained fighters return to Syria

About 70 U.S.-trained fighters have returned to Syria after receiving training in Turkey, crossing the border in gun-mounted four-wheel drives, the U.S. military's Central Command said Monday.

The development comes as U.S. administration has been struggling to defend its military strategy in Syria, directed against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) with an air campaign and programs to train, assist and equip local forces.

Last week, Gen. Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that only four or five U.S.-trained Syrian fighters remain on the battlefield against ISIL, and U.S. Central Command spokesman Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder said that about 100 Syrian recruits were completing their U.S.-led training programs and that most would soon be in Syria.

Central Command said in a news release on Monday that about 70 graduates of the Syria Train and Equip program had re-entered Syria with their weapons and equipment and were operating as New Syrian Forces alongside Syrian Kurds, Sunni Arab and other anti-ISIL forces.

The return of the fighters was first reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain.

In July, shortly after the first 54 U.S.-trained fighters arrived, Syria's affiliate of Al-Qaeda known as the Nusra Front attacked them, killing several and taking others hostage while many fighters fled. Ryder said that those rebels largely disbanded — of the 54, one was killed; one is being held captive; nine are back in the fight; 11 are available but not in Syria; 14 returned to Syria but quit the U.S. program and 18 are unaccounted for.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, said the men returned on Friday night. They had been scheduled to return earlier in the month and have been receiving training, by British, American and Turkish trainers, near the Turkish capital Ankara, he said. He said the men returned in 12 gun-mounted four wheel drives, crossing at the border near the Turkish town of Kalis. He said they also each had a bag with personal weapons and life vests.

The new U.S.-trainees are likely meant to intensify military pressure on Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the so-called caliphate, which ISIL established across much of Syria and Iraq. The city is sometimes targeted by American-led coalition airstrikes, and occasionally also the Syrian government forces.

In addition to changing the role of the U.S.-trained rebels, the Pentagon would scale back their numbers from the original target of 5,400 per year to a much smaller total, perhaps 500, the U.S. officials have said.

The overhaul comes at a time when Russia, a strong backer of Syria's President Bashar Assad, has increased its military buildup in the country as the embattled leader faces setbacks on the battlefield at the hands of ISIL and other fighters. In its fifth year, the war has claimed a quarter of a million lives, left a million injured and half of the country's pre-war population on the move, displaced at home or refugees.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press