Who are these 70,000 Syrian fighters David Cameron is relying on?

Downing Street and the intelligence services have been unusually coy when asked for a breakdown of the 70,000 moderate Syrian fighters cited by David Cameron as a force on the ground to defeat Islamic State (Isis).

So far no breakdown has been forthcoming. Given that it is a key part of Cameron’s argument for extending UK airstrikes to Syria – one identified by MPs as a central weakness in the prime minister’s case – there is pressure on Downing Street and the joint intelligence committee, the umbrella group for the agencies, to provide an answer.

A force on the ground is needed to defeat, as opposed to just containing, Isis. So who are these Syrian fighters that Cameron is relying on?

There are an estimated 60,000-70,000 opposition fighters in Syria. The problem is that they are not a united force. And so far they have not shown much interest in focusing on Isis – as Cameron would like them to – being too preoccupied fighting Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian army.

There are at least 100-120 different groups, with various aims, and differing in size from thousands to just 100-200 members. They are splintered, with somelimited to a narrow geographical area. And some are far from moderate, sharing the ideology of al-Qaida.

There are a few, vague clues to who Cameron had in mind in his written response to the Commons foreign affairs committee.

Firstly, Cameron mentioned not Syria but the forces arrayed against Isis in Iraq – the Kurdish peshmerga and the Iraqi security forces. But what about Syria?

“This is more difficult in Syria, because Assad’s forces are still fighting directly against the moderate opposition and there is no prospect of intervention by an external ground force. Any large-scale external force, even of Arab or other Muslim troops, could risk inflaming the conflict further, rather than contributing to a political settlement,” Cameron says.

In spite of this, both the Kurds in Syria and moderate armed groups have taken territory from Isis, Cameron said. “Although the situation on the ground is complex, our assessment is that there are around 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters on the ground who do not belong to extremist groups,” he said.

Roughly about half of these fighters are defectors from the Syrian army, the rest recruited from villages and towns, mainly to fight against Assad’s forces. They are under-equipped and have begged the US and other external forces for anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. In the last few months, these have begun to reach them.