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Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey on Friday said that a Syrian rebel force consisting of 12,000-15,000 will be required to push back extremists from the Islamic State (IS) in eastern Syria, a number that is three times the number of combatants that will be trained by the US.
Dempsey offered the estimate and said that building up a reasonable rebel force on Syrian ground will be important to gain back territory in Syria; he also said that it will take some time and a lot of patience for that to happen.
“We’ve had estimates anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 is what we believe they would need to recapture lost territory in eastern Syria”, he said at a press conference at the Pentagon.
According to the current plan, American instructors will recruit, train and arm 5,000 people in the next year; the number was never meant to represent the grand total of fighters forming the “moderate” rebel forces.
“Five thousand has never been the end state”, he said.
This is the first time Washington has given out a specific number on the number of rebel fighters required to prevent IS extremists conquering Syria.
Dempsey also said that defeating the IS will take a lot more than air power and that “a ground component” was a crucial aspect of the coalition.
“We believe the path to develop that is the Syrian moderate opposition”, he said.
He added that he was “confident” that the training will be successful but asked for patience.
“We have to do it right. Not fast. We need to have military leaders that bind them together. They have to have a political structure into which they can hook, and therefore be responsive to. And that’s going to take some time”, he said.
