IS routs U.S.-backed New Syrian Army in fresh setback for U.S. strategy

IRBIL, Iraq — The U.S. military’s efforts to confront the Islamic State in Syria suffered another setback Wednesday after the militants routed the only group to have survived intact an ill-fated Pentagon program to train and equip moderate rebels last year.

The U.S.-backed New Syrian Army said it was forced to withdraw its forces to its base at Tanf near the Jordanian border after launching what appears to have been a poorly conceived offensive aimed at capturing the strategically important eastern Syrian town of Abu Kamal on the Syrian-Iraqi border.

Islamic State claims published by its Amaq news agency that its fighters had killed 40 members of the group and captured 15 could not be independently confirmed and appeared to be exaggerated. Islamic State social media accounts posted photographs and videos showing brutalized bodies, the beheading of one fighter and small quantities of captured, U.S.-supplied weaponry.

The New Syrian Army said in a statement only that it lost “several men” before the group “successfully departed” to Tanf, more than 150 miles away in remote desert terrain near the Jordanian and Iraqi borders.

Abdulsalem Muzil, a spokesman for the rebel group with which the NSA is affiliated, said the fighters retreated with most of their weaponry and vehicles intact. He called the operation a success.

“The whole operation was a test of power for the New Syrian Army, and our forces proved they can fight ISIS,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

But other Syrians affiliated with the group said its attack did not go according to plan and that sleeper cells in the town that were expected to join the offensive failed to materialize.

The battle was a setback, they said, for a small group that was depleted further by an Islamic State suicide bomber in May and by a Russian airstrike in June.