Posted on 07/30/2015 1:53:35 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
BAGHDAD — The commander of a group of Syrian fighters trained by the United States has been kidnapped by Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, his group said in a statement Thursday.
The commander, Nadeem Hassan, and seven of his fighters were taken by the Nusra Front, a rival of the Islamic State in Syria, as they were returning from a meeting in Turkey.
A contingent of 54 fighters from Mr. Hassan’s group, known as Division 30, are the only ones who have graduated from a Pentagon program to train Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State in Syria. One the fighters taken with Mr. Hassan was his deputy, Farhan Al-Jasem, who commands the fighters who graduated from the American training program.
A number of other insurgents in Syria said that Mr. Hassan’s men had participated in the American program to train insurgents to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mr. Hassan’s description of details of the training program, including the timing, content, logistics and number of fighters who participated, matched what American officials have said publicly and privately about the Pentagon program.
A number of other insurgents in Syria said that Mr. Hassan’s men had participated in the American program to train insurgents to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mr. Hassan’s description of details of the training program, including the timing, content, logistics and number of fighters who participated, matched what American officials have said publicly and privately about the Pentagon program.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Made a mistake and posted the next paragraph twice. The next posted paragraph should be:
The reported kidnapping is likely to be a new blow to the troubled American program, which in its first year has trained only about 60 fighters, according to an American official — all of them apparently from Mr. Hassan’s group. If it turns out that all seven of Mr. Hassan’s kidnapped comrades were trainees, then there will be only 47 fighters left in Syria from the Pentagon’s training program.
“Captured”?
Or defected to ISIS?
Reports say 8 men were also with him.
Sounds like a set up. Check kerry’s emails.
Bad news, everything out of there is bad news. I hope this Commander can be freed. It’s not saying much but Al Nusra isn’t ISIS. It seems strange Al Nusra has released people in the past alright.
Hassan seems to be a common name with Muslims like Smith is in English.
How many Syrians trained by the US switched over to ISIS??
expect a gruesome death video of these brave men, if they were bona fide
Why? ISIS didn’t capture them. Al Nusra doesn’t release those videos.
Heck, Pat Buchanan even wrote in a column that Israel, yes, Israel may have helped Al Nusra in intelligence, everything is turned on its head over there.
They may well not kill these people: http://www.voanews.com/content/jihadists-seize-us-trained-syrian-fighters/2886969.html
About the same number of Syrians you will have to watch out for when Obama sends them here
If the guy and eight of his people were captured, I guess they weren’t really “trained” very well. More $$$ down the drain. Great foreign policy at work here, Clown Prince nobama and Idiot kerry.
Centcom denies: http://www.syriadeeply.org/articles/2015/07/7824/syria-executive-summary-731/
You never know about anything over there.
Great Britain:
“According to the poll conducted for the newspaper by ORB, 67 per cent of the public support air strikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, while 33 per cent oppose the proposal.” -Same webpage above.
67%, I don’t know if we’d get that here. That sounds pretty good and we don’t have the Muslim population as a percentage as well in the USA.
Optimistically, I’d say we’d get, 60%.
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