The Pentagon has announced it is pausing its half-a-billion dollar training programme for Syrian rebels.<br /><br /> It comes after recent news that the programme had only managed to train barely half a dozen men in Syria, and<br />those it had trained in Turkish camps had surrendered their weapons before crossing the border into Syria and quitting. <br /><br /> “What you’re seeing now is a focus more on the equipping aspect of that formula than the training aspect. But, I think they also make clear that nobody’s abandoning forever the idea of training. It’s just that there’s going to be a pause,” said White House spokesman John Kirby.<br /><br /> Training camps in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will close, with only the Turkish facility remaining open. The CIA has other covert operations.<br /><br /> Since Russia threw its air power behind President Bashar al-Assad rebel forces have been hit hard, but finding trustworthy loyalists has proved all-but-impossible, and the exhaustive vetting process has mea
