Soccent leader met with Syrian opposition

Major General Michael K. Nagata is commander general, Special Operations Command Central. JIM REED/STAFF ¬

By Howard Altman | Tribune Staff
Published: January 14, 2015   |   Updated: January 14, 2015 at 08:10 PM

In the effort to defeat Islamic State and help protect Syrians from the regime of president Bashar al-Assad, the commanding general of Special Operations Command Central met in Turkey with members of the Syrian opposition and civilian leaders to introduce his vision for the future of the fight against the Sunni insurgent group.

The meetings were held by Army Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata and U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Daniel Rubinstein on Jan. 12 and 13 in Istanbul. Officials from U.S. Central Command, which like Soccent, is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, say the goal of the meetings was “helping to strengthen the moderate opposition and protect the Syrian people from the threats facing them, including ISIL and the Assad regime. These introductory meetings were a productive opportunity for us to coordinate on an important part of that effort, which is the train-and-equip program and to gain a better understanding of conditions on the ground in Syria.”

Centcom officials say the train-and-equip mission is to ultimately field up to 5,000 trained moderate Syrians a year to fight against the jihadi group. Nagata is not only in charge of Soccent, but he now also commands a new task force, called the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force, created specifically to train the Syrians to fight against Islamic State.

Nagata and Rubinstein met with “a broad range of political and armed opposition leaders, as well as civil society leaders,” said Col. Patrick Ryder, a Centcom spokesman. “However, we are not in a position to detail all of the groups or attendees.”

Planning for how to help the Syrians has been going on for months.

“We continue to work with our partners to implement the congressionally approved train-and-equip program for the moderate Syrian opposition, and we expect training to begin in the early spring. We are grateful to our partners in the region, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and others, which have offered strong support to host and quickly stand up the program,” said Ryder. “The Syrian train-and-equip planning process is ongoing and is a vital aspect of the coalition’s strategy to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. We are still working out many of the details of this program. Upon their reentry into Syria, DOD-trained forces will be in a better position to defend themselves and Syrian communities from threats.”

Nagata, who reports to Army Gen. Lloyd Austin III, commander of Centcom, runs commando operations in the Centcom region. Though there are still nearly 11,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, there are only about 2,000 commandos there, while a large number of the 3,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are special operations forces. With a growing increase of U.S. military efforts now in Iraq and Syria for the Operation Inherent Resolve fight against Islamic State, Nagata has moved his operations forward from Tampa to Qatar to run the mission to train and equip Syrians.

Centcom officials say that it will take at least a year of training and fielding before fighters can return to Syria and battle Islamic State.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have agreed to host the sites, according to Centcom.

Nagata has been widely lauded for his leadership, but there is concern about the number of Syrians he is able to train.

“I cannot really think of anybody more thoughtful and qualified than Nagata to train the 5,000 or so Syrian moderates,” said Mohsen Milani, executive director of the University of South Florida’s World Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies. “The problem I have is not with the training. The problem I had is whether 5,000 or 10,000 highly trained and highly equipped men can actually end this stalemate or to defeat the Assad regime and terrorists at the same time.”

The meeting in Istanbul was significant, said Milani, because “it signals American willingness to help equip moderate force in Syria to fight against both the Assad regime ultimately and terrorists, however, I do not think it is a significant new strategy or a new policy, but one step of a broad strategy that President Obama has outlined.”

The issue will be a major topic of conversation tomorrow at a conference Milani is hosting at USF. Vice Adm. Mark Fox, Centcom deputy commander and Christopher Hill, former ambassador to Iraq, will be among seven speakers at “Extremism in the Greater Middle East and Its Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy,” which kicks off 8 a.m. at the Patel Center for Global Solutions Auditorium at USF.

Milani said he will hold a public conversation with Fox at 9 a.m. to talk about his analysis of the major threats Fox sees in the region

“In that discussion I would be asking him about American strategy to degrade and defeat ISIS.” he said.

In June, Islamic State began an offensive, eventually capturing wide swaths of Syria and Iraq. While U.S. troops are in Iraq, with joint operations centers in Baghdad and Irbil and a headquarters unit in Baghdad, there are no troops in Syria.

The Obama administration gathered a coalition of dozens of nations, including many neighboring Syria and Iraq, to fight against Islamic State. Centcom, at the behest of President Barack Obama, initiated an air campaign against Islamic State targets in Iraq on Aug. 8 and in Syria on Sept. 23. The daily operations are now run by the Combined Joint Task Force — Operation Inherent Resolve, which reports directly to Centcom. The task force regularly sends out a report of airstrikes, which now number more than 1,400, carried out by the coalition. They give an indication of who is taking part. On Wednesday, the task force announced the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom took part in airstrikes in Iraq while . the U.S., Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates took part in airstrikes in Syria.

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