Last month, US Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) trained members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during live-fire attack helicopter exercises. JTACs direct military aircraft during combat and pictures published on a Pentagon website show the JTACs training SDF members to call in airstrikes, which appears
the first time the US is giving non-state actors such training, at least publicly.
Above: A person wearing an SDF patch speaks into radio during training with JTACs (Sgt. Torrance Saunders/Army).
According to a report from
Air Force Times, the pictures might be the first time JTAC training with the SDF is publicized, but the training is nothing new. SDF fighters have had the ability to call in US airstrikes for years now.