Letting Jihadis kill Jihadis. Moderates receiving more support than the Kurds.
Via NRO
The U.S. is giving a theoretically nice boost to whichever “moderate” rebels in Syria we feel deserve strong U.S. backing, the Wall Street Journal reports:
The U.S. has decided to provide pickup trucks equipped with mounted machine guns and radios for calling in U.S. airstrikes to some moderate Syrian rebels, seeking to replicate the success Kurdish forces, aided by American B-1B bombers, had over Islamic State last month.
The plan comes as the U.S. prepares to start training moderate rebels, who are waging a two-front fight against the extremists and Syrian regime forces. Defense officials said American trainers will be in place March 1 in Jordan, with a second site due to open soon after in Turkey.[…]
A team of four to six rebels will each be given a Toyota Hi-Lux pickup, outfitted with a machine gun, communications gear and Global Positioning System trackers enabling them to call in airstrikes. The fighters will also be given mortars, but the administration hasn’t decided to provide the teams with more sophisticated antitank weapons.
The Central Intelligence Agency began a covert program to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels in 2013, providing ammunition, small arms and antitank weapons to small groups of trusted fighters. While that program continues, it is widely viewed as having fallen well short of its aims.