Of Fifty-Four U.S. Trained Syrian Rebels, Four or Five Remain.

According to General Llyod Austin, commanding general of the United States Central Command, only a handful of American trained Syrian rebels in Syria can continue to fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The rebels (whose training by U.S. military personnel cost around $500 million) numbered around fifty-four when they were initally inserted in Syria earlier this year. Now, only "four or five" have the ability to fight- the rest have either been killed, captured, or otherwise missing.

Initially, the Obama Administration had planned to train five thousand Syrian rebels. After the failure of the initial Syrian rebels program, the number of potential trainees has been drawn back to about five hundred. According to Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) an issue that the rebels have is that they sign a deal in which they cannot fight against Syrian dictator Bashar Al- Assad, who targets the rebels as well as ISIS. No one knows what this means for the rebel program as the United States enters talks with Russia (a known ally of Al-Assad).

Dan Bennington

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/09/17/training-syrian-rebels-isis-starr-dnt.cnn

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/17/us-military-overhauling-syrian-training-mission-after-admitting-4-or-5-fighters/