The US administration was under fire again Wednesday, accused of a "flawed" strategy to help end the war in Syria, as a top official admitted training for moderate rebels will only begin next year.

A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry sparred with senators, lawmakers in the House rounded on special envoy to Iraq Brett McGurk for a slow and inadequate response to the threat posed by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

"After four months of the US-led air campaign in Iraq and in Syria, ISIS still controls essentially the same amount of territory that it did in the summer, and one of the reasons for this, in my opinion, is the limited nature of this effort," said representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House foreign affairs committee.

US officials have said that some 1,100 airstrikes have been carried out by the US-led coalition since September.

But in the 2003 conflict against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, "we had a thousand sorties per day," Royce said, adding Iraqis and Kurds fighting IS had also been denied the "heavy equipment" they need.

In Syria, where the US plan is to train up the moderate US-backed opposition, "these Syrian groups have suffered from dire ammunition shortages in the last several weeks," Royce said.

McGurk defended the US strategy however, and stressed that Washington hoped to begin training the first of about 5,000 Syrian opposition rebels in March 2015.

"Part of the reason is because of the vetting standards and that we're being very careful with this. But we're not sitting on our hands," McGurk insisted, adding the training would take about a year.

But representative Ted Poe argued: "What are we doing in Syria right now? People are dying in Syria and the cavalry's not showing up til 2016."

"So March of 2016 then we have a plan, then we have fighters then we send them to Syria. There's no telling what ISIS can do in that year or however many months it is," Poe said.

"Does the United States have some other strategic plan, other than arming these folks who aren't going to show up til 2016, dropping bombs that is marginal whether it's been successful, helping with military aid to some of these coalition countries?"

"Yes, the train and equip program is just one small element in an overall campaign," McGurk shot back.

"This is a multi-year campaign. Phase one is Iraq. What we're doing in Syria right now is degrading ISIL's capacity."

Kerry on Tuesday called on senators to give the US administration a new war powers authorization to continue the fight against IS.

But he was heavily criticized by some of the senators, including John McCain, who said that the Obama administration was "doing nothing" to stop Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from slaughtering his people.

Switzerland orders community service for returned IS jihadist
Geneva (AFP) Dec 10, 2014 –

Switzerland has ordered a returned recruit of the Islamic State group to do 600 hours of community service and will not send him to prison, in the country's first sentencing of a foreign jihadist fighter.

Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber's ruling went into effect this week, he told public broadcaster RTS late Wednesday.

The 30-year-old recent convert to Islam, from the western Swiss canton of Vaud, had travelled to Syria late last year to join an IS training camp.

The man, whose name was not given, told the broadcaster he had been indoctrinated over the Internet.

"I was new to Islam… The videos I saw and the discussions I had online made me feel like I had to go there," he said.

After two weeks in the training camp however, he asked to leave, only to be jailed by the militant group, which held him for 54 days, RTS reported.

The man, who has been cooperating with authorities and claims to have cut all ties with the jihadist group, was sentenced under a Swiss law against taking part in criminal organisations and under a military law against fighting for a foreign army, according to the report.

Thousands of Western volunteers have joined the IS battle to create an Islamic "caliphate" straddling Syria and Iraq, heightening fears that radicalised and battle-hardened fighters will launch attacks when they return to their home countries.

Asked about the seemingly light sentence, Lauber insisted his ruling was appropriate for this particular case.

He stressed though that future cases of returned fighters might result in very different sentences, depending on the details of the case.

"This is a verdict for this case, singular," he told RTS.