US military teams, arms land in Turkey to train and equip Syrian forces

ANKARA, Turkey – US soldiers and weapons landed in Turkey Friday for a joint mission to train and equip moderate opposition forces in the Syrian war.

The 123 US soldiers are in two teams, with 83 deploying at the US Incirlik air base in southern Turkey and the rest going to the Hirfanli military training center in central Kirshr province, Turkish media reports said.

A special US team has been tasked at Incirlik to manage the weapons supplies, while the training will take place at Hirfanli, the Hurriyet Daily reported.

It quoted sources saying that the recruits are expected to be transferred to the southern province of Hatay, where they will train in the use of arms, including anti-tank weapons, infantry rifles and machine guns, before traveling to Syria to join fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).

Washington and Ankara signed an agreement in February for the mission, which is part of plan by US President Barack Obama’s administration to train “moderate Syrian” forces.

The Pentagon has said that 400 special operations personnel will train the Syrians, and the agreement stipulates that Turkey will contribute an equal number of trainers.

The program was twice delayed over disagreements between Ankara and Washington over who to train. Washington has been concerned that radicals who have infiltrated Syrian opposition groups could find their way into the drill.

To try and prevent that, the Americans chose recruits based on their own intelligence. Ankara, which backs the Free Syrian Army (FSA), has the option to veto any name on the US list.

The FSA is considered a moderate opposition force, but extremist Islamists are feared to have infiltrated the group. Two years ago, US-supplied weapons to the FSA were found in the hands of ISIS and other radical groups.

Meanwhile, Syrian activist groups on Wednesday reported another suspected chemical weapons attack in northwestern Idlib province, at a time when Syrian forces have suffered battlefield defeats.

The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has denied the use of chemical weapons, however no other party in the four-year war has the helicopters used to drop the bombs.