Despite pledges to account for every U.S. weapon sent to Syrian fighters battling the Islamic State, the Pentagon’s current plan to ensure they don’t fall in the wrong hands is problematic, experts say.
Last month, following the Pentagon’s announcement that it was going to provide “small arms” to Syrian Kurds fighting the Islamic State, the spokesman for the U.S-led coalition in Iraq and Syria, then-Col. John Dorrian, tweeted that “every single one of these weapons” will be “accounted for and pointed at” the Islamic State.
Col. Ryan Dillon, the new spokesman for the coalition, told reporters Thursday that this means Syrian commanders will “sign for by serial number” all the equipment and weapons that they are given. He added that the U.S. troops acting as advisers to the Syrian forces will also ensure the weapons are not misused and that those commanders have been properly vetted.
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With thousands of Syrian fighters and only several hundred U.S. forces dispersed among them, it is unclear how those troops will effectively monitor the U.S.-provided weapons. Dillon did say, however, that if there is misuse, the Pentagon could curtail the flow of arms.
But experts said the proposed tracking methods inspire little confidence in the Pentagon’s ability to keep track of the weapons, adding that more safeguards will be needed if there is going to be any real accountability.
John Ismay, a senior crisis adviser and small arms expert at Amnesty International, said accurate bookkeeping is a start but that it will likely not be enough to keep the weapons from flowing elsewhere on the battlefield and into other parts of the region.
“It shows where those weapons went,” Ismay said of the proposed ledger of serial numbers. “It in no way ensures that those weapons will stay with the people that signed for them.”
Two other small-arms experts voiced similar concerns. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive issue.
Besides just having commanders record serial numbers, one of the experts added, U.S. troops on the ground could implement regular inventories of the weapons and be transparent about the weapons’ security and transportation procedures.
“I don’t see how these [current] procedures will prevent theft, loss and diversion,” he said.
Like most instances in which the Pentagon has provided weapons to armed groups, the weapons and equipment are entering a combat zone, a place notorious for harsh conditions where oversight can be difficult.
“Bookkeeping is one of the first things to suffer in combat,” Ismay said. “What we’ve seen is that when the U.S. is providing weapons to armed groups, those armed groups have a hard time maintaining custody of those weapons. We’ve seen it in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s safe to assume that it’ll be worse in Syria.”
The United States is sending weapons that are particularly hard to track, according to a Pentagon budget document that outlines the type of arms being provided to “vetted” Syrian groups. The weapons include Kalashnikov rifles, RPG-7s and other Soviet-style light weapons that have flooded the Middle East in past decades. These new weapons — likely made in eastern European factories — will probably blend in with those that have already proliferated.
Last month, the Pentagon announced its plan to supply Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the YPG, with weapons to help retake the Islamic State’s de-facto capital of Raqqa. The YPG is one of the key elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of various groups, including Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, backed by the U.S. military. The primarily Arab component of the Syrian Democratic forces, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition, has been receiving weapons from the United States for more than a year.
The Pentagon’s move to arm the Kurds, however, has angered Turkey because it sees the YPG as an arm the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a group that has been fighting an on-again-off-again insurgency inside Turkey since the 1980s and is labeled a terrorist organization by both the United States and the Turkish government
