Report says Syrian military delegation discussed sending 10,000 fighters to Yemen

A high-ranking military delegation from the self-proclaimed Syrian regime visited the Saudi capital in recent days for consultations with Saudi officials, according to a report by the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar. Yemeni intelligence sources told Al-Akhbar that the discussions centered on arrangements to transfer approximately 10,000 Syrian fighters to take part in the war in Yemen, with the fighters likely to be drawn primarily from the ranks of foreign extremist terrorists.

The report emerged even as the regime in Damascus denied reports of a decision to deploy thousands of armed personnel to southern Saudi Arabia. According to Al-Akhbar, a Syrian military advisory group visited the Najran and Asir regions in the south of the kingdom at the same time as the negotiations in Riyadh.

The report said that, following the failures of Saudi Arabia and its proxies in Yemen, certain Arab regimes are attempting to bolster the morale of the Saudi military and to overshadow the repeated victories of the Yemeni armed forces by deploying foreign troops to the kingdom, even if only in a symbolic capacity.

In this context, the administration of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced that it will deploy its own forces to Saudi Arabia. Pakistan, too, had previously indicated that it would send troops to Saudi Arabia to assist the kingdom in the war in Yemen.

According to Mehr News, citing the Al-Akhbar report, the discussions in Riyadh focused on the transfer of about 10,000 fighters, and the Syrian military advisory group's visit to Najran and Asir coincided with those negotiations.