Russia apparently is bombing CIA-backed rebels in Syria. How did they find them? The last time we heard from the Pentagon, there were only four or five of them.
Russia launched airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday, catching U.S. and Western officials off guard and drawing new condemnation as evidence suggested Moscow wasn’t targeting extremist group Islamic State, but rather other opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
One of the airstrikes hit an area primarily held by rebels backed by the Central Intelligence Agency and allied spy services, U.S. officials said, catapulting the Syrian crisis to a new level of danger and uncertainty.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. general directing the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq set off a wave of criticism Wednesday when he told a Senate panel that the $500 million Pentagon program to train nationalist Syrian rebels had so far yielded only “four or five” fighters.