The Syrian state news agency attacked on Friday US military plans to train and equip Syrian rebels, saying they amounted to support for terrorists.
The plan is part of the US strategy to roll back the Islamic State group that has seized much of eastern and northern Syria. Senior US officials met Syrian opposition and civil society leaders in Istanbul this week to discuss the program.
In this regard, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters on Thursday the US military is planning to deploy more than 400 troops to help train the Syrian rebels.
The Syrian government has depicted the entire armed opposition as terrorists since civil war erupted in 2011.
The insurgency is today dominated by hardline Islamist groups including Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. The non-jihadist opposition has little presence.
The United States has not yet said exactly which elements of the opposition it plans to train, though it says the support will go to moderates.
Meanwhile, the United States led six more air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and five in Iraq since early Thursday, according to the US-led military coalition.
The strikes in Syria centered around the key border town of Kobani, destroying nine of the militants' fighting positions, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Friday. In Iraq, the five strikes near Ramadi, al-Qaim, al-Asad and Mosul struck various fighting positions as well a building, boats and a barge used by Islamic State, according to the statement.
On another note, a monitoring group reported that the Islamic State had beheaded or shot 17 men in Syria in the past two days as it faces increasing attacks from unidentified gunmen in areas it controls.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which uses a network of sources across the country to report on the war, said the spike in execution-style killings follows the killing of 10 Islamic State fighters in hit-and-run attacks in several areas around Deir al-Zor province this month.
Deir al-Zor stretches from Raqqa to the border with Iraq and links Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in the two countries.
Islamic State fights in Syria against both forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rival insurgents in a war that is in its fourth year and which the United Nations says has killed 200,000 people.
LBCI/REUTERS