

Pentagon-trained rebels in Syria are reported to have betrayed their American backers and handed their weapons over to al-Qaeda in Syria immediately after re-entering the country.

Fighters with Division 30, the “moderate” rebel division favoured by the United States, surrendered to the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra , a raft of sources claimed on Monday night.

Division 30 was the first faction whose fighters graduated from a US-led training programme in Turkey which aims to forge a force on the ground in Syria to fight against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) .

A statement on Twitter by a man calling himself Abu Fahd al-Tunisi, a member of al-Qaeda’s local affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, read: "A strong slap for America... the new group from Division 30 that entered yesterday hands over all of its weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra after being granted safe passage.

"They handed over a very large amount of ammunition and medium weaponry and a number of pick-ups."

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President Barack Obama is about to lose the man he hand-picked to build the war effort against the Islamic State. Retired General John Allen (USMC) will be stepping down as envoy to the global coalition this fall, and the White House is searching for a replacement to be the face of America’s flailing effort to destroy the jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.

Allen will leave government service in the coming weeks, four administration officials told us. State Department officials said they were not ready to officially announce Allen’s departure, but he has notified his superiors he will give up his job in early November, after serving just over one year. His chief of staff, Karin von Hippel, will also depart, to join a British think tank.

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It seems to me that these Two events might be related and that this is further evidence that the powers that be may be reconsidering their Syrian strategy. Needless to say Col. Lang was right all along; "moderate islamist" is an oxymoron.

The collapse of this operation, if it indeed will be wound up, leaves us with a small problem not unknown to intelligence agencies: what to do with the other batches of "moderate" recruits already in the training pipeline? Do we simply tear up their application forms and send them on their merry way? Hard hearted empaths know what must be done with them.