Despite a commitment of about half a billion dollars from Washington, the “New Syrian Force” being trained by the U.S. to fight ISIS doesn’t really exist. This was evident even before five of the 60 fighters in the group were captured by al-Qaida last week. There were supposed to be 15,000 of them.
As Nancy Youssef of the Daily Beast reports, the Pentagon may still be putting on a brave face, but the Obama administration is increasingly shifting its attention away from the NSF and toward supporting an existing force: the 50,000-strong Popular Protection Units, better known by their Kurdish initials YPG. The Syrian Kurdish militia has been “the most effective fighting force in Syria,” according to one U.S. official, wrestling almost a dozen towns out of ISIS’s hands, including the hard-fought victory at Kobani last year.
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