American military trainers are set to train the militants in Jordan in order to help increase their capabilities, US officials told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The unnamed officials did not explain about the details of the training programs.

The US Central Intelligence Agency has been training the militants fighting the Syrian government forces, but it seems the new programs are broader.

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Syria Wednesday, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was "mostly supportive of helping the opposition by their development, by their training and equipping, not by becoming their military arm."

The administration of US President Barack Obama is planning to attack Syria under the pretext that the Syrian government carried out chemical weapons attacks.

The United States has claimed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was behind a deadly chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus last month, even though there is no evidence linking the attack to the government forces.

President Obama has called for a prompt vote from Congress authorizing the use of force in Syria.

Meanwhile, a senior adviser to President Assad said al-Qaeda-linked terrorists were responsible for the chemical attack.

Assad’s political and media adviser Bouthaina Shaaban said al-Qaeda was behind the attack just as it was responsible for “killing Syrian people, raping women, [and] kidnapping Christian clerics.”

“The same people who were on the London Tube and who killed British people, the same people who on 9/11 in New York killed American people, they are the same people in Mali, the same people in Libya, the same people in Iraq, the same people in Syria,” Shaaban added.

A new poll conducted by Washington Post-ABC News showed that nearly six in 10 in the US are opposed to missile strikes on Syria.

According to the survey, 70 percent of Americans also oppose Washington and its allies providing militant groups in Syria with weapons.

BA/BA