DUSHANBE, February 10, 2016, Asia-Plus – The Financial Times reports that Saudi Arabia is discussing plans to deploy ground troops with regional allies, including Turkey, for a safe zone in Syria, in a last-ditch effort to keep alive a rebellion at risk of collapse as a Russian-backed offensive by Syrian government forces encroaches on the northern province of Aleppo.
Although western officials have dismissed the plans as lacking credibility, they are a sign of the desperation that many of Syria’s opposition backers feel towards what looks like an increasingly bleak outcome in the war. Two people familiar with Saudi plans told the Financial Times that high-ranking Gulf officials are in Riyadh meeting Turkish officials to discuss options for deploying ground troops to head a coalition of fighters inside Syria.
Aleppo city, Syria’s former business hub, is the last significant urban centre controlled by the rebels. Its countryside, on the northern border with Turkey, is their lifeline.
According to the Financial Times, President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, bolstered by Iranian-funded Shia militias, advanced last week into opposition-held territory in Aleppo’s northern countryside under the cover of Russian air strikes.
Publicly, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain are calling for troops to be deployed as part of the US-led international coalition already ranged against ISIS, the Financial Times reported, noting that this comes after Washington singled out Arab countries for not doing more to fight the Islamist group. But regional observers say the moves are cover for an intervention to help the Syrian rebels.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the head of Iran”s elite Revolutionary Guard said on Saturday Saudi Arabia lacked the courage to go through with a plan to send ground troops to Syria, and warned they would be wiped out if they went in.
Mohammad Ali Jafari”s blunt words on the Fars News Agency were Iran”s first official reaction to a statement from its regional rival Saudi Arabia this week that it was ready to join ground operations in Syria if a U.S.-led military alliance decided to start them.
“(The Saudis) have made such a claim but I don”t think they are brave enough to do so … Even if they send troops, they would be definitely defeated … it would be suicide,” Jafari was quoted as saying.
