Arab security agencies to help vet Syrian rebels

​WASHINGTON — The United States is turning to Arab intelligence agencies that may have backed radical jihadists in the past to help recruit and vet an opposition force in Syria, highlighting the challenges of recruiting moderate rebels to fight the Islamic State.

"Some of the Sunni-led nations, Arab League partners, are going to participate in the vetting," Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Paste BN this week without naming specific countries. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan are among regional countries cooperating with the U.S. as part of the coalition fighting the militant group.

Rogers said regional allies can provide the local expertise the United States lacks when vetting rebels, adding such a system is not perfect but has the best chance for success.

Analysts say cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies and militaries poses risks as the U.S. attempts to create a moderate rebel force capable of taking on the Islamic State in Syria, where the militant group has seized large swaths of territory.

Careful recruiting and vetting is required to ensure that jihadists do not infiltrate the force or that warlords don't hijack weapons and people for their own causes.

Arab allies might overlook past radical associations of recruits, said Jeff White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Such risks are unavoidable, he said. "So what if the vetting process isn't perfect? We're not giving them atomic weapons."

Countries, including Saudi Arabia, have been linked to support for radical Islamist groups in the region in the past, though they have joined the coalition fighting the Islamic State now.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states have historically shown more enthusiasm for defeating Syrian President Bashar Assad than Islamist extremist groups. U.S. officials are working to convince allies that the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, poses a more immediate threat.

The United States is currently supporting a covert program to arm and train Sunni opposition forces. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is gearing up for its own military-backed program, where it hopes to train about 5,000 moderate rebels per year, for a total force of 15,000 at the end of three years.

The Pentagon program will initially focus on building local defense forces, but later units will be trained and armed to conduct offensive operations, the Pentagon said.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said it would take about eight to 12 months before the opposition forces "begin making a difference on the ground." The process of vetting has not begun.

In congressional testimony, Hagel said persuading fighters to adopt U.S. goals would be part of the vetting process.

"Yes, they want to see Assad go," Hagel said of opposition forces. "But the most absolute, immediate threat to most of these people is ISIL and what ISIL is doing to their villages and to their families and their homes."

The Pentagon says air power alone will not defeat the Islamic State and ground forces are required to drive the militants from the areas they now occupy. But Syrian opposition forces are fractured, and moderates have been squeezed out as Islamic State militants grow in power.

Leaders from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda reportedly agreed to team up — to stop fighting each other and work together to defeat their opponents, including Assad, according to the Associated Press, which quoted unnamed Syrian opposition officials and rebel leaders. If the alliance holds, it would pose an even bigger threat to moderates.