Syrian war

The White House just abandoned the big Syria rebel training program that Obama said he never wanted

The Obama administration has ended the $500 million train-and-equip program, The New York Times reports, marking a sudden end to a troubled program that was supposed to be a cornerstone of the US strategy to combat ISIS.

The program, run by the Pentagon, has been hit by setbacks from its inception. The Obama administration's policy toward Syria and its more than four-year-old civil war is rapidly becoming a black mark on the president's legacy.

A scathing report by Peter Baker of The New York Times last month detailed the White House's refusal to accept any responsibility for the program's crash.

... At that point, there were only "four or five" US-trained rebels left fighting in Syria, according to a top US general, after a group of 60 were ambushed in August by the Al Qaeda branch in Syria, the Nusra Front.