The US Defence Secretary, Ashton Carter, met his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, to discuss the ongoing wars in Syria and Iraq. As he stated during a news conference, the official announcement would be made sometime during the day by President Barack Obama. According to statements made by US officials on condition of anonymity, a training camp in Turkey would be retained to teach rebel leaders combat tactics and how to coordinate air strikes.

The USD500 milliong training programme was initially designed to prepare 5,400 fighters in 2015 and 15,000 during the next three years. In reality, the results were far behind the targets, due to a series of inefficiencies, such as the detailed vetting process by the authorities. According to US officials, last month the programme had only four to five people in training, showing the inadequacies.