After scrapping its vetting program to aid Syrian rebels against the Islamic State, the US military has airdropped tons of ammunition to a new band of fighters while softening its opposition to using its materiel to attack the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad.



A spokesman for the US military taskforce said on Tuesday that discussion of lifted restrictions on targeting was a “moot point” since the 50 tons of ammunition airdropped to the Syrian Arab Coalition was not in an area where regime forces fight or Russian pilots overfly.

While the US military previously vetted each Syrian militant receiving US sponsorship, now the program vets only the leadership of rebel groups, raising the prospect that US weaponry could migrate to the broader Syrian civil war. This was the main rationale once used by Barack Obama to limit the US commitment in Syria, before indefinitely “pausing” the effort to build a Syrian anti-Isis force.

The White House announced on Friday that it was pausing the yearlong initiative to build the force that would pledge not to turn its US-provided weapons and training against Assad.

Legislators have said the restriction helped account for the paltry numbers of Syrian fighters the $500m program fielded. But Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman, argued Tuesday it was “too soon” to call the program a failure, contending that the vast majority of the $300m the US spent out of its $500m purse went to weaponry it is sending to its new and mostly unvetted Syrian allies.

“They’re not anywhere near regime forces, they are specifically near Isil, which is who we are interested in fighting,” Warren told reporters on Tuesday.



“So while these forces, we do ask them, we want them to fight Isil – I’m not prepared to talk about requirements or restrictions or pledges or anything like that. What I’ll say is we’re looking for forces who are pursuing the same objectives that we have, which is the defeat and ultimate destruction of Isil.”

But while Warren said that force comprises “maybe in the 5,000 range” of fighters, the US only vetted a “few people” within it before conducting a weekend airdrop of 50 tons of ammunition – rifle and machine-gun ammunition, as well as hand grenades, mortars and rocket-propelled grenade rounds – to the Syrian Arab Coalition. It appears distinct from an additional US airdrop on Monday to Kurdish fighters in Syria’s north-east.

“It’s difficult to put a restriction on a bullet, obviously, but we have supplied this ammunition and this equipment to forces we are satisfied are committed to fighting Isil,” Warren acknowledged.

Warren also signaled on Tuesday that Russian pilots are performing reconnaissance on US drones over Syria, and expressed confidence that Iraqi forces would soon retake the Sunni city of Ramadi from Isis.

Russian pilots have come in “visual recognition distance” of US aircraft, Warren said. But the vast majority of Russian flights in range of US warplanes have come near US drones, suggesting that Russia is conducting reconnaissance on US drone capabilities.



“The Russians will come and, I think, want to take a look at our UAVs,” Warren said, using an acronym referring to drones.

Warren said that only a “fraction” of approximately 80 strikes the US has observed Russia conducting in Syria have impacted Isis, Russia’s stated reason for its two-week-old intervention. He said the vast majority of them have hit targets in Homs and Hama, where Isis had not previously been observed.

“We’ve seen Isil make progress based on Russian airstrikes,” Warren said.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Iraq, Warren signaled that after a stalled campaign this summer, Iraqi forces were nearing an operation to retake Ramadi, which Isis captured in May.

“We’d like to see them move as rapidly as possible … Now is the time for a final push into Ramadi,” Warren said. US forces had previously forecast an Iraqi invasion of the city, supported by US bombing, during the summer.

Warren said that the Iraqis had “essentially encircled the city” at four key approaches to Ramadi, but warned that an estimated 600 to 1,000 Isis forces had dug in, establishing trenches, berms and de facto minefields made of homemade bombs to fortify their positions.