Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front launched an offensive Friday on the headquarters of a new US-formed rebel group in the country’s north, leaving at least 11 dead, a monitor said.
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The group said in a statement that it, too, had come under attack after Division 30 fighters had fallen back to areas under its control, and that it tried to assist Division 30 during the battle.
Nusra Front attacked Division 30 and other rebels overnight, rebel groups and the Observatory said on Friday, escalating tension between rival insurgents near the Turkish border.
Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Elissa Smith confirmed an attack on Friday by an “unknown force” on U.S.-trained Syrian forces and members of the 30th Division, in which she differentiated between the two groups.
“We warn the soldiers of this division not to proceed with the American plan…”
On Saturday Nusra Front posted a video showing the operation in which several Division 30 members were captured and the aftermath of the U.S.-led coalition airstrike.
The Nusra Front, one of the most powerful insurgent groups in northern Syria, has a track record of crushing rebel groups that have received support from Western states, including the Hazzm movement that collapsed earlier this year.
Syrian opposition sources say members of Division 30 have been trained under the U.S.-led train and equip programme launched in May.
Eight of them, including a commander, were kidnapped on Thursday by Al-Nusra in a village in Aleppo province, the Observatory said.
Al-Nusra has also carried out summary executions of government troops in areas it has captured.
A U.S. military official seemed to deny any American connection to Division 30, saying on Friday that no member of a U.S.-backed rebel faction had been abducted.
“Coalition forces struck multiple Daesh (IS) targets in the vicinity of the eastern Syria border to reduce the freedom of movement of Daesh”, said Brigadier General Kevin Killea, chief of staff of the US-led coalition.
Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre think-tank, said the capture of its fighters could deal “a mortal blow” to the reputation of the US s train-and-equip programme in Syria.
The Britain-based Observatory said on Saturday that regime forces had retaken around seven of those positions, including the power plant.
The Nusra Front vowed to defend Syrians against President Bashar Assad’s government as well as “any American agent”.
The group’s statement said Sunnis would not hand the sacrifices of four years of war “on a plate of gold” to the United States, “for it to establish its feet in the region over the graves of hundreds of thousands of the people of Syria”.
A spokesman for the American military, Col. Patrick S. Ryder, wrote in an email statement that “we are confident that this attack will not deter Syrians from joining the program to fight for Syria”, and added that the program “is making progress.”
Several insurgent leaders said the Pentagon should market its program as “protecting civilians”, from both the Islamic State group and government forces.
The first contingent of about 60 was sent into Syria on July 14, with new equipment and vehicles.
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Earlier in July, the coalition attacked 16 bridges in and near the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State group’s de facto capital, in order to prevent the extremists from moving military capabilities in Syria and Iraq.
