OMG…it's not even a hash tag. Thanks tweetanon.
Foreign fighters poured into Syria from around the world. They formed into something like 1000 different rebel groups. These guys were loosely associated and would shift ties among groups depending on who gave them the best deal. Putin talked about this publicly at least a few times. Sarah Carter, who spent some time there, explained how crazy and chaotic she thought it was. We probably killed a lot of mercenaries who came from the US and our allies.
Yes, RBG is still alive. I checked the transcript for one of the cases heard by the SCOTUS today. The old bat was listed in it as present and asking questions.
Their "regular" forces go through the same training as their "special" forces. Not much difference except the former can be seen publicly.
IMO we should put our police, military, and special forces all through the same training like they do. Whenever a serious issue occurs, we send in a gazillion folks while the Arabs only use like one or two for the same type of situation.