Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda

This is pretty much a collapse of the US strategy in Syria. Depending on how many people in Washington are waiting to stab the Obama administration in the back, the outcome may be no strategy at all for a while

# The Telegraph 
Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda () {

By = Ruth Sherlock, Gaziantep
Date = 02 Nov 2014

"As a movement, the SRF is effectively finished," said Aymen al-Tammimi, a Syria analyst. "Nusra has driven them out of their strongholds of Idlib and Hama."

It was not immediately clear if American TOW missiles were among the stockpile surrendered to Jabhat al-Nusra on Saturday. However several Jabhat al-Nusra members on Twitter announced triumphantly that they were.

(...)

In Idlib, Harakat Hazm gave up their positions to Jabhat al-Nusra "without firing a shot", according to some reports, and some of the men even defected to the jihadists.

In Aleppo, where Harakat Hazm also has a presence, the group has survived, but only by signing a ceasefire agreement with Jabhat al-Nusra, and giving up some of their checkpoints to the group.

Mr Tammimi said: "One of the conditions for giving Harakat Hazm weapons was that they did not work with Jabhat al-Nusra. The Western bolstering of these groups posed a threat to them."

(,,,)

Mr Tammimi said of the US-led efforts in Syria: "This attempt to cultivate groups includes such a thorough vetting process that it slows down the operation. Maybe it would have worked in the Syrian war 2012. Now it really is too little, too late."

Source = http://fw.to/O9FWWqQ  }