WASHINGTON, January 24 (Sputnik) — Less than 100 US military personnel will deploy in the next few days to prepare for a training program for the Syrian opposition as part of the US-led coalition’s counter-Islamic State (IS) strategy, the Pentagon said.
“US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel authorized an initial contingent of trainers and enablers to begin establishing training sites for the program to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition,” Pentagon spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby said at a Friday press briefing. “We expect the first advanced detachment of less than 100 to arrive somewhere in the theater in the coming days and the next wave of several hundred trainers and enablers will deploy in the next few weeks.”
The training sites will be located in Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where the Pentagon plans to produce 5,000 fighters by as early as the end of the year. As the program develops as many as 15,000 Syrian opposition fighters could be trained in the coming years, according to the Pentagon.
The US military still hasn’t identified Syrians to join the program, although the Pentagon has said there will be an extensive vetting process. The vetting process will take three to five months, followed by six to eight months of training, Kirby said.
Last week the Defense Department said that as many as 1,000 American troops and trainers would be sent to assist in the training of Syrian opposition groups.
The US-led coalition has been performing airstrikes on IS targets since August following an escalation in the atrocities committed by the extremist group. The extremist militant group began fighting the Syrian government in 2012. IS later expanded operations to Iraq and declared a caliphate in the territories controlled by the militant group in both the countries.
