UAE says ready to send ground troops to Syria

On Sunday, the UAE, a federation of seven states and one the Middle East’s most important economic centres, said it stands ready to supply ground troops to support and train worldwide coalition soldiers in the war-ravaged country.

“Syria is a great global problem and the leading powers must find common ground on how to solve it. We will continue to be part of the worldwide effort to establish peace in the region”, the minister concluded.

“Of course an American leadership in this effort is a pre-requisite”, Gargash said.

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard expressed doubt about the Saudi ability’s to tilt the balance in terms of the Syrian army’s advances on all fronts in its internal conflict, claiming that the Saudis are not “brave enough”, to follow through with their aggressive rhetoric.

The Syrian government warned that any foreign army entering Syria without an invitation would be considered an enemy and resisted.

Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri told Dubai-based TV channel Al-Arabiya that the country will commit ground troops to the conflict for the first time if its coalition partners agree during an upcoming meeting in Brussels.

“I don’t think they will do what they say about using ground forces”, Moualem added. “And I think our position remains the same and we will have to see how this progresses”.

Turkey has long had a military presence inside both Iraq and Syria, fighting IS while avoiding open confrontation with Assad’s forces, in spite of any desire to be rid of the Syrian regime, and in the face of hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding over its border. US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter confirmed that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit is set to discuss the initiative of Saudi Arabia with the country’s representatives. The governments of Iran and Syria are Shia, but the overwhelming majority of the Syrian population is Sunni.

Troops from Morocco, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain are also expected to arrive in Saudi to participate in the military exercises.

Four months of Russian air strikes have tipped momentum toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the nearly-five year Syrian civil war in which at least 250,000 people have died and more than 10 million have fled their homes.