The United States spent nearly $500 million to train and equip Syrian militants. The half a million dollar program was intended to train over 5,000 rebels, however in the end there were only about 100 US-trained fighters. Ouch, pretty bad, eh?
But here comes the best part: only a few weeks after these fighters were deployed and sent to fight ISIL, a top US general admitted that less than 10 rebels were still fighting, while the rest were killed, had deserted and were nowhere to be found in the vast Syrian Desert. In other words, the program was a total embarrassment for the Obama Administration.
"There were mistakes committed on both sides. Wrong decisions were made when choosing the leadership and the troops that were trained," said Ammar Al Wawi, a former Syrian Army officer who joined the US-trained forces, as cited by NBC News.
"ISIS pays $500, up to a $1,000 dollars, for each fighter and $5,000 dollars for their leaders," Al Wawi said.
Furthermore, one of the US-trained brigades handed a lot of their equipment to the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, in exchange for safe passage after they came under an attack from the terrorist group. But heck with the equipment itself, the worst part is that some of US-trained rebels now fight for the al-Nusra, the former Syrian Army officer said.
