A US-allied Syrian rebel commander surrendered six coalition-provided trucks and ammunition to an intermediary linked to the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, known as the Nusra Front, the US military has said.



The items were apparently turned over in exchange for safe passage within the region and amounted to roughly 25% of the equipment assigned to that unit, US Central Command said.

Air Force Colonel Pat Ryder, a Central Command spokesman, said the military was looking into the incident.

The report contradicts information provided by the Defense Department, which earlier described as incorrect the reports of US-trained Syrian rebels defecting and missing equipment going to the Nusra Front.

The allegations on Wednesday come only days after the group of about 70 fighters returned to Syria after training in Turkey as part of the US programme to train and equip rebels to take part in the fight against the Islamic State group.

The programme has already been criticised as too little too late and failing to provide enough protection for those trained rebels once inside Syria. The selected rebels are said to undergo a thorough vetting process to ensure they focus on the fight against Isis.

US officials have begun an overhaul of the efforts, including suggesting that the newly trained fighters operate as the New Syrian Forces alongside Syrian Kurds, Sunni Arab and other anti-Isis forces.

The US Central Command confirmed on Monday the graduates have re-entered Syria with their weapons and equipment and were to operate alongside existing western-allied forces.

Another previous batch of rebels trained by the US had previously been hit hard by their rival, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria.

The first trained group, made up of 54 fighters, was wiped out by al-Qaida’s affiliate, the Jabhat al-Nusra or the Nusra Front, soon after it returned to Syria in July. In the attack, several members of the group were killed and others taken hostage while many fighters fled. A US Central Command spokesman, air force colonel Patrick Ryder, said that those rebels largely disbanded – of the 54, one was killed; one is being held captive; nine are back in the fight; 11 are available but not in Syria; 14 returned to Syria but quit the US programme and 18 are unaccounted for.

The US-trained rebels face significant challenges – from minuscule numbers in a war that has a myriad of competing armies, to social media postings that have described them as “dogs of America” and a media campaign that has tainted the group’s name even before they returned to Syria. Other rebels have derided them for agreeing to focus their fight on Isis, away from the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, whom they consider the main target of their rebellion.

The head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said the US-trained rebels are so few and so ill-equipped that they have not shown to be relevant.

“So far, they have made no impact on the ground,” he said. “If they [Americans] want to train some, they must first train them on human rights issues and democracy before military training.”