Jim Michaels

USA TODAY

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — Building an opposition force in Syria capable of mounting offensive operations against Islamic State militants will take at least a year and require sustained U.S. support once the force is deployed, U.S. defense officials say.

Developing offensive capabilities, which would allow fighters to retake land occupied by the Islamic State, requires longer training that could take up to 18 months, said a U.S. senior military official.

He and two other senior defense officials at U.S. Central Command, the military headquarters overseeing operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, briefed reporters this week on U.S. military strategies for combating the Islamic State. The officials requested anonymity since they were not authorized to discuss plans publicly.

Military leaders have warned the strategy to defeat the Islamic State will be a lengthy affair, and building a moderate Syrian opposition force from scratch could be the most formidable part of the American-led campaign.

The plans call for establishing forces initially capable of defending towns and villages against militant attack. Building more capable forces that can launch offensive operations could be trained simultaneously, but it would take more time, and those forces would need sustained support once back in Syria.

The forces — which the U.S. will arm and equip — may require support with air or artillery strikes, logistics and intelligence once deployed, the officials said. That support could come from U.S. or its allies.

The coalition has not yet begun recruiting or vetting the force, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Friday.

The Pentagon said they will carefully vet any forces before sending them to training. "We'll be very deliberate about screening and vetting them," Gen. Lloyd Austin, who leads Central Command, said earlier this month.

The Pentagon has not provided specifics on how it would recruit moderate opposition forces, but the United States has been providing support to opposition groups under the Free Syrian Army, a loose coalition of rebel groups that have come under attack by the Islamic State as jihadists poured into Syria.

Pentagon officials said contacts with the opposition groups have helped them get a clearer picture of which moderate forces deserve support.

Training a Syrian ground force is critical because the Pentagon says airstrikes alone will not defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

"In Syria, right now we just don't have a ground force that we can work with," Kirby said earlier this month.

The Pentagon faces similar challenges in Iraq, where defense officials say it will take months before Iraqi security forces are capable of reclaiming land seized by militants. There, the Pentagon is attempting to retrain an existing military whose skills have atrophied.

In Syria, training will be aimed at building units of between 100 and 300 fighters, and the Pentagon estimates it will be able to train 5,000 fighters a year once the program is launched.

Officials acknowledge there is no guarantee they will get enough recruits to put that many through training.

The volunteers will be trained outside Syria — Saudi Arabia has agreed to host a training site — before being deployed back to their country to fight the Islamic State.

The moderate opposition in Syria has been increasingly battered by the combat-seasoned and well-armed Islamic State militants. But U.S. officials say they expect the Islamic State will have been weakened by airstrikes by the time the Syrian opposition forces are ready to be fielded.

"My personal opinion is that they'll be much degraded from what they are now," Austin said.

It is not clear that opposition forces, once deployed, will want to turn their sights on the Islamic State. Rebel leaders said they will remain focused on attacking forces belonging to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

"Rebels will not be abandoning the fight against Assad," said Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.







