Syria is said to be "cautiously" considering sending troops to assist Saudi Arabia in the fight against the Houthis in Yemen, Reuters and others are reporting Wednesday.
An anonymous US official described that this was a focus of conversation between Syria's self-declared President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the two met in Riyadh on Tuesday.
Ironically it was the Saudis that heavily supported Sharaa's rise and overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in the first place. Sharaa, previously known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was the founder and leader of Syrian al-Qaeda (Nusra Front, later Hayat Tahrir al-Sham). He had also fought Assad while initially under ISIS, and had taken control of Idlib.
via SANASo while for many years foreign fighters flowed from Saudi Arabia into Syria, now the jihadi pipeline looks to go in the opposite direction.
The hardline Sunnis of the new Damascus government are well-known for viewing all Shiites as 'apostates' - and so there could be plenty of willing participants to go and fight the Houthis, who are Shia and backed by Iran. Some reports speculate there are already thousands of Syrian mercenaries as well as 'volunteer' fighters on the ground in Yemen.
"Options being considered include defensive aid to protect the kingdom from attacks, or deployment of forces in an offensive capacity to help Saudi-backed Yemeni troops fight the Houthis," according to sources cited in the reports.
A US official has sai
