Great investment! $500 million that could have been spent on solar power, wind turbines and unicorn flatulence.
REYHANLI, Turkey — Throughout the fiasco of the Pentagon’s $500 million effort to train and equip a force of Syrian rebels to take on the Islamic State, one small group endured.
The New Syrian Army completed the U.S. training course in Jordan, infiltrated into Syria and then, in March, without fanfare or publicity, seized a pinprick of territory from the militants at the remote Tanaf border crossing with Iraq in the far southeast corner of the Syrian province of Deir al-Zour.
There they have remained, holding their ground without deserting, defecting or getting kidnapped, unlike many of the other similarly trained rebels whose mishaps prompted the temporary suspension of the program last year.
Even this modest success is now in jeopardy, however, following an Islamic State suicide attack earlier this month. An armored vehicle barreled into the rebel base shortly before dawn on May 7, killing a number of them and wounding several more, said Lt. Col. Mohammed Tallaa, a Syrian officer who had defected and is the group’s commander.
The Washington Post agreed not to reveal the precise number of casualties — and the number of rebels at the base — for fear of further endangering the rebels who are left. But, Tallaa said, the attack came as a heavy blow to a force that was already small and suffering from a lack of weaponry and equipment that he claimed had been promised but not delivered.
Those that survived are now questioning whether they want to remain at all in their sparsely defended desert outpost to await further attacks, Tallaa said, in an interview near the southern Turkish town of Reyhanli.