DOD: Vetting rebels will take at least 3 months

The Pentagon said Friday that vetting Syrian rebel groups to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) could take three to five months.

Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said that the military would begin working “very soon” with the intelligence community and Saudi Arabia to select Syrian rebels to train and arm.

{mosads}But he cautioned that it would be a “little while” before the fighters were ready.  He said that after the vetting process, it could be 8-12 months before any fighters would be able to return to Syria and fight ISIS.

The Pentagon will initially train more than 5,000 Syrian rebels at an existing facility in Saudi Arabia.

Kirby said the trained fighters would defend their own communities, go after ISIS militants and counter Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s regime. 

The rebels would get small arms at first, and then could eventually receive more sophisticated weaponry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday. 

Kirby’s comments come a day after lawmakers approved President Obama’s plan to arm and train moderate Syrian groups to fight Islamic militants. The ramped up effort comes as U.S. advisers help train local Iraqi forces and with airstrikes targeting ISIS.

Lawmakers from both parties expressed concerns about the Syria strategy, questioning if the rebel groups could be counted on and the amount of help from allied nations. Lawmakers have also pressed the administration to clarify what assistance other countries, in particular from the Arab world, are providing to the anti-ISIS effort.

Kirby did not announce any new contributions from other nations. He said it would be up to individual nations to announce their own contributions to the fight. But he said more nations were enlisting in the effort.

“What we are seeing are more and more nations coming into this coalition,” he said. “This notion that Arab countries are not signing up [is] just false.”