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U.S. airdrops small arms ammo to Arab groups in northern Syria

By The Associated Press
Published: October 12, 2015, 5:16pm

WASHINGTON — U.S. cargo planes dropped small arms ammunition to Arab groups fighting the Islamic State group in northern Syria, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman in Baghdad for the U.S. military command in charge of the anti-Islamic State campaign in Syria and Iraq, said by email that the airdrop was conducted Sunday by Air Force C-17 cargo planes. He did not identify the Arab groups that received the supplies but said their leaders had been vetted and have been fighting to remove the Islamic State group from northern Syria.

The airdrop is in line with a revamped U.S. approach in Syria. The Obama administration announced last week that instead of trying to build a new Syrian rebel force, it will provide equipment, including ammunition, to existing Syria rebel groups who share the U.S. goal of defeating the Islamic State.

Separately, a local Kurdish official in the northern Syrian city of Kobani said the U.S. had provided 120 tons of weapons and ammunition to the main Kurdish militia fighting the Islamic State in that area, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG.

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