[DefenseOne] Pentagon updates the tally just days after CENTCOM shocked senators by reporting that only '4 or 5' Syrians remained in the fight. This is the U.S. proxy force in Syria, by the numbers: Of the first class of 54 to graduate the U.S. train-and-equip program, exactly nine are currently fighting in Syria, while 11 more members of the New Syrian Force -- the Pentagon's name for the group it hoped would become an effective anti-ISIS unit -- are waiting outside the border to join the fight.
Fourteen have left the NSF to join some other moderate opposition group, while 18 more are somewhere in Syria, but missing. One has been reported killed, and one has been confirmed as kidnapped by Al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate.
On the bright side, all of their sophisticated equipment is accounted for and being held by another moderate opposition group, according to Col. Pat Ryder, spokesman for U.S. Central Command.