Terror threat

Centcom Concedes to The Daily Beast on Syria Rebel

The U.S. military will concede on Monday that, once again, it misspoke when trying to clarify what happened to scores of U.S.-trained fighters who entered Syria this month. And it’s increasingly obvious that the befuddlement in Washington reflects what is even worse confusion on the ground.

The Pentagon, responding to reports in The Daily Beast that a specific U.S.-trained commander had defected along with most of his unit to a group affiliated with al Qaeda, will now concede that an unnamed commander who actually had been rejected by the U.S. as a possible trainee for the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State had somehow acquired access to U.S. equipment that he then handed over to al Qaeda affiliates.