MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA USA Obama to overhaul U.S. approach to support Syria rebels - Carter

Record ID: 135922

  • Title: MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA USA Obama to overhaul U.S. approach to support Syria rebels - Carter
  • Date: 9th October 2015
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (OCTOBER 9, 2015) (REUTERS) FALLON AND CARTER STANDING AT PODIUMS REPORTERS LISTENING
  • Embargoed: 24th October 2015 13:00
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  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABO832PTGZ4F5GP7DCD5PD70MB
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: U.S. President Barack Obama will overhaul Washington's approach to supporting Syrian rebel forces following this year's deeply troubled launch of a U.S. military training programme, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday (October 9) in London.
    The decision would be announced later on Friday, he told journalists, saying: "I think you'll be hearing very shortly from him in that regard about the proposals that he has approved and that we are going to go forward with."
    In May, the U.S. military began training for up to 5,400 fighters a year in what was seen as a test of Obama's strategy of having local partners combat Islamic State militants and keep U.S. troops off the front lines.
    But the programme was troubled from the start, with some of the first class of less than 60 fighters coming under attack from al Qaeda's Syria wing, Nusra Front, in their battlefield debut.
    "I wasn't satisfied with early efforts in that regard and so we are looking at different ways to achieve basically the same kind of strategic objective, which is the right one, which is to enable capable motivated forces on the ground to retake territory from ISIL and reclaim Syrian territory from extremism. We have devised a number of different approaches to that going forward and taking them to President Obama," said Carter during a news conference with British Defence Minister Michael Fallon.
    Reuters reported last week that the Obama administration was considering extending support to thousands of Syrian rebel fighters, possibly with arms and air strikes, as part of the revamped approach to Syria.
    That includes rebels near the border with Turkey and members of the Syrian Arab Coalition.
    Carter said the new U.S. effort would seek to enable Syrian rebels in much the way the United States had helped Syrian Kurdish forces to successfully battle Islamic State in Syria.
    "The work we've done with the Kurds in northern Syria is an example of an effective approach where you have a group that is capable, motivated on the ground, that you can enable their success," Carter said.
    "That's exactly the kind of example that we would like to pursue with other groups in other parts of Syria going forward. That is going to be the core of the President's concept."
    Islamic State fighters have seized villages close to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo from rival insurgents, a monitoring group said on Friday, despite a Russian air-and-sea campaign that Moscow says has targeted the militant group.
    Islamic State is now within 2 km (1.24 mile) of government-held territory on the northern edge of Aleppo which has suffered widespread damage and disease during the four-year civil war.
    Syria's military, backed by Russia, Iran and militias, has launched a major attack in the country's west to recapture land lost to non-IS rebels.
    Carter condemned recent Russian air strikes in Syria.
    "Russia's actions in Syria carry risks both to the region and to Russia itself. Their strategy in Syria is fundamentally flawed and the mistakes Russia is making have consequences and will only inflame the Syrian civil war," he said.
    Russian warplanes and warships have been bombarding targets across Syria for 10 days in a campaign which Moscow says is targeting Islamic State fighters who control large parts of eastern Syria, as well as swathes of neighbouring Iraq.
    But the campaign appears to have mainly struck other rebel groups, some of which had been battling to stop the Islamic State advance across Aleppo province.
    Asked about reports that Russian airstrikes are targeting civilians, Fallon told reporters: "I too deplore the bombing of opposition groups in Syria simply because they are opposition groups, that is very regrettable and in particular the mounting toll of civilian casualties through what looks like the use of unguided as well as guided munitions."
    "We have been very careful as part of the coalition strikes in Iraq to avoid civilian casualties and I find it very, very regrettable that we have seen so many, or appear to have seen so many, civilian casualties just in the last few days through this indiscriminate bombing of areas that are nothing to do with ISIL at all," said Fallon.
    Russian and U.S. warplanes are now flying missions over the same country for the first time since World War Two risking incidents between the two air forces and their fast jets.
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