The Daily Beast learned that, two days after the latest little contingent of U.S. trained forces entered Syria, a commander named Anas Ibrahim Obaid, known as Abu Zayd, linked up with them, and handed over their U.S.-supplied equipment to Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al Qaeda franchise in Syria.

...The Pentagon, at that point, ruled out Abu Zayd as the possible link who behind the equipment ending up in Nusra hands, insisting he was only vetted by the U.S. military, but had never received U.S. training, ergo, he couldn’t be the guy who gave up all that stuff.

Not quite:

Earlier last week, The Daily Beast acquired video of Obaid with U.S. trainees entering the Syrian city of Atareb. Abu Zayd’s appearance alongside U.S.-trained troops suggested that the commander somehow managed to make himself the leader of the troops who passed the U.S. vetting system that he’d failed. Moreover, it meant Abu Zayd had direct access to weapons and equipment provided by the U.S.

Rebels told The Daily Beast without equivocation that Abu Zayd was the man who had handed over the U.S. equipment to Nusra.

Who is Abu Zayd?

Abu Zayd is a commander in Division 30, a rebel group from which the United States recruits fighters to receive U.S. training and equipment as long as they agree to fight ISIS instead of, or at least before, making war on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Centcom's latest response to the Daily Beast:

“In this particular instance, the [vetted] commander leading the [U.S. trained] graduates self-reported to coalition forces that under threat from Al Nusra, they surrendered six trucks and some ammunition to a suspected Al Nusra Front intermediary to secure safe passage. We will look at what we can do to prevent such a situation in the future, but given the complexity of the battlefield it is not possible to eliminate all risk.

Bottom line: Just as many predicted, the U.S. program of providing weapons and training to "moderate" Syrian Rebels is a crapshoot, at best.