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U.S. airdrops ammunition to Syria rebels

12 October 2015 22:28 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. U.S. forces airdropped small arms ammunition and other supplies to Syrian Arab rebels, barely two weeks after Russia raised the stakes in the long-running civil war by intervening on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, APA reports quoting Reuters.

One military official said the drop, by Air Force C-17 cargo planes in northern Syrian on Sunday, was part of a revamped U.S. strategy announced last week to help rebels in Syria battling Islamic State militants.

Last week, Washington shelved a program to train and equip "moderate" rebels opposed to Assad who would join the fight against Islamic State.

The only group on the ground to have success against Islamic State while cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition is a Kurdish militia, the YPG, which has carved out an autonomous zone in northern Syria and advanced deep into Islamic State's stronghold Raqqa province.

On Monday, the YPG announced a new alliance with small groups of Arab fighters, which could help deflect criticism that it fights only on behalf of Kurds. Washington has indicated it could direct funding and weapons to Arab commanders on the ground who cooperate with the YPG.

Syrian Arab rebels said they had been told by Washington that new weapons were on their way to help them launch a joint offensive with their Kurdish allies on the city of Raqqa, the de facto Islamic State capital.

The U.S. military confirmed dropping supplies to opposition fighters vetted by the United States but would say no more about the groups that received the supplies or the type of equipment in the airdrop.

The Russian intervention in the four-year-old Syrian war has wrongfooted U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, which has been trying to defeat Islamic State while still calling for Assad's downfall.