Mitchell Prothero – U.S. training helped mold top Islamic State military commander

The 15 Chechens looking to cross the border from Turkey to Syria didn’t strike Abdullah as particularly important or unusual. It was early summer in 2012, and as a smuggler based in the Turkish border town of Killis, Abdullah, who’d fled his home village in Syria because of fighting on the outskirts of Aleppo, was used to secretive groups of …