"All volunteers from the moderate opposition will be subject to strict vetting procedures and will receive training in international humanitarian law. Trainees will be security and medically screened prior to the start of training and will be assessed during and monitored after training," Fallon told reporters.
The training is reported to include basic infantry drills and battlefield medicine, as well as skills to avoid mines and booby-traps, according to the text of the upcoming announcement.
The program was put on hold in 2015, after it became known that very few of the fighters trained in Turkey by western instructors succeeded in their mission, having either been killed by Daesh or Nusra front jihadists, or surrendering, along with all of their brand-new US-supplied weapons and communications gear.
The UK Ministry of Defense still believes the moderate-opposition story, denying that those rebels are extremists. On the contrary, US President Barack Obama is reportedly unwilling to send more manpower to "moderates" in Syria, as it has been suggested that they are becoming increasingly jihadist.
Critics of the moderate opposition notion observe that the fighting skills, to say nothing of the weapons themselves, will be transferred to Daesh or other groups, as rebel fighters have willingly surrendered in the past.
Currently, some 500 British troops are training Kurdish and Iraqi forces in Iraq to support the ongoing assault on Mosul, according to the Telegraph.
