WASHINGTON – America’s botched effort last month to support a Syrian moderate rebel group known as “Division 30” was a chain of errors that recalls, in a small way, the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco.
The Division 30 debacle has some clear and disturbing lessons: The rebels weren’t well prepared for their mission, and they had poor intelligence about potential adversaries inside Syria. The U.S. was too dependent on Turkey, and it didn’t have clear plans about how to respond if the rebels were attacked; although the U.S. eventually provided air support, it was too late to do much good.
David IgnatiusDivision 30 was the first contingent of Syrian rebels deployed under a $500 million “train and equip” plan authorized last year by Congress. It’s an overt program, run by U.S. Special Forces, separate from a parallel covert program run by the CIA. The idea is to generate over 5,000 trained fighters a year who could help clear Islamic State extremists in Syria and then hold the ground.
Many Syria analysts applauded the idea. But the idea never had strong support from a White House that has been allergic to Syrian intervention.
Division 30 appears to have walked into a trap soon after its U.S.-trained contingent of 54 fighters entered Syria on July 12 to join up with fellow rebels at Azaz, just south of the Turkish border town of Kilis. Nearby were extremist fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, but commanders didn’t think Jabhat al-Nusra would attack. That expectation proved wrong.