New Syrian Forces

The New Syrian Forces are Syrian paramilitary groups trained and equipped by a United States-led coalition and active in the Syrian Civil War. Most of the members were drawn from Division 30 of the Free Syrian Army. After training, the fighters return to Syrian rebel groups and are not under international coalition command and control.

History
Before the training program started, about 400 Syrian fighters, most of them from the Free Syrian Army's Division 30, travelled to the border with Turkey hoping to join the program. Many of them failed to join the program. On May 7, 2015, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that nearly 90 Syrian fighters of Division 30 had begun their training, and a second group would begin training in the next few weeks. The vetted fighters were being trained to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), rather than the forces of Assad. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan opened training sites for the program.

On July 12, 2015, 54 fighters of Division 30, the first graduates of the train-and-equip program, commanded by an ethnic Turkman colonel who had defected from the Syrian army, crossed from Turkey to Syria in a convoy of 30 pickup trucks, according to Turkish news media. They would be able to call in US airstrikes against ISIL. On July 28, 2015, leader Nadim al-Hassan and an unspecified number of companions were allegedly abducted by members of the al-Nusra Front while returning from a meeting in Azaz. In a public statement, the group called for their release.

On the night of September 18, 2015, and to the next morning, approximately 70 graduates of the Counter-ISIL Coalition’s Syria Train and Equip program re-entered Syria from Turkey to operate as "New Syrian Forces". Although they were trained and equipped by the coalition, they do not operate under its command and control. According to Syrian sources, the 75 fighters newly trained in a camp near the Turkish capital crossed through the Bab al-Salama border point and entered Aleppo Governorate, heading to the town of Tal Rifaat. Most of them deployed to Division 30, while others went to support the Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade. The group entered in a convoy of a dozen cars with light weapons and ammunition, under air cover from the US-led coalition. By September 23, 2015, al-Nusra Front sources claimed that the group had handed over all its weapons, plus ammunition and vehicles, to al-Nusra Front. After initially denying the report, the United States Central Command confirmed that the group had handed over six pick-up trucks and some ammunition, about one-quarter of their equipment, in exchange for safe passage.

This newly established group joined the Syrian Democratic Forces, tasked with "calling in airstrikes against ISIS and recruiting moderate rebels."