Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced from London on Friday the United States was halting its program to train and arm Syrian rebel fighters.
He said the United States "remains committed" to training fighters who are trying to oust ISIS from the country, but will instead look for ways to "improve" how it does business, CNN reported.
"I was not satisfied with the early efforts in that regard, and so we are looking at different ways to achieve the same strategic objectives, which is the right one, which is to enable capable motivated forces on the ground to retake territory from ISIL and reclaim Syrian territory from extremism so we have devised a number of different approaches to that going forward," Carter said.
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Carter also said President Obama is due to talk about the change in operation sometime Friday.
The Pentagon has spent about $500 million on the training program so far. But its record of success has been widely debated.
The New York Times cited a senior Department of Defense official who said the big change was the United States would no longer recruit so-called moderate Syrian rebels for training in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Rather, limited training would go forth in Turkey via smaller centers of operation, where a select few, the "enablers" – or, leaders of opposition groups – would be given advice on operational maneuvering. One example of what these "enablers" would learn: How to properly call in airstrikes, the New York Times said.
"Training thousands of infantry was not the right model, I think that's become pretty clear," said another senior administration official who requested anonymity, the newspaper reported.