This week al Qaeda's Syria wing al-Nusra released a video documenting the captives they'd taken during clashes with the US-backed Syrian group, Division 30 on Friday.
It represents the latest in a series of setbacks for the US program, which launched in May to train 5,400 vetted rebels by the end of this year and has so far sent only 60 back to the battlefield.
But a series of interviews from Nusra’s video also shed light on the intricacies involved the program — captives talk about how US recruiters found them in Syria, what they were offered for participation and what happened next.
The footage has since been taken off of YouTube, but you can watch a mirrored version of from Reddit.
Here's three things to take from it.
1. US recruiters appear to be looking for individuals. One captive says he was first approached by a recruiter in his village in Syria. A wide net of vetted rebel groups have already been armed and trained by the US since at least 2014, some of which have also been tagged to take part in the training program. And while the video doesn’t give enough context about who the rebel was fighting with before, it does suggest recruiters are approaching individual fighters.
2. The US's monetary offering is actually pretty middle-of-the-road, or less. The interviewees say they were offered $400 and 400 Turkish lira ($143) to take part in a 45-day program in Turkey. According to a July report by al Souriya, this is pretty comparable to both the Free Syrian Army and al-Nusra — the FSA reportedly pays between $100-300 per month, while Nusra offers $200-600 plus food and clothing stipends and additional allowances for married fighters.
3. US recruits were asked to feed back location information of Nusra positions. In addition to an M16 rifle, the captives say their American trainers gave them a radio to send back information about Nusra positions across the Syrian battlefield. Since its inception in May, the program has been heavily focused on fighting Daesh (ISIS), but gathering Nusra’s location information suggests the airstrike campaign is http://www.albawaba.com/news/us-airstrikes-kill-nusra-front-commanders-…
