Syria Is Preparing to Send About 600 Special Forces Fighters to Saudi Arabia to Deploy Along the Kingdom's Border and Potentially Help Fight Iran-Backed Houthi Rebels in Yemen, Three Officials Tell the Associated Press
Monday, November 9, 2026
Syria is preparing to send about 600 special forces fighters to Saudi Arabia in the coming week, to deploy along the Kingdom's border and potentially help it fight the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen — that is the plan described on Sunday by three officials with knowledge of it, speaking to the Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly. On their account, Syrian military advisers have already arrived in Saudi Arabia. No Syrian fighters have been sent into Yemen.
A Syrian official said the initial force of about 600 special forces is expected in the coming week, and that Saudi Arabia insisted the fighters be Syrian nationals — not the foreigners who flocked to Syria during its civil war to join different rebel factions. A Syrian delegation led by Khaled Khattab, commander of the 82nd Division, recently made a two-week visit to Saudi Arabia, the official said. A second Syrian official said 36 Syrian military officials visited a command and operations room in Jeddah staffed by Saudi and Yemeni officials and received briefings on the different front lines and areas of operation. A regional official with knowledge of the discussions said Syria had already deployed a “small number of advisers” to Saudi Arabia, where they helped train Yemeni forces inside the kingdom.
Neither government has announced any deployment. Saudi officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. And Syria's own state-run news agency, SANA, reported on Saturday that an unnamed diplomatic official in Syria dismissed reports that Syrian forces were headed to Yemen, saying the agreement with Saudi Arabia focuses on training its military forces and building its capabilities. What the two capitals have put on the record is narrower: Syria and Saudi Arabia announced last week that they had signed a military cooperation agreement, without providing details, during a visit to Riyadh by Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa — a visit at which the Saudi government agreed to lend Syria more than $400 million for postwar reconstruction of homes and basic infrastructure.
The plan surfaces as the fighting around Yemen widens. Fighting escalated this summer between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government's Saudi-backed forces, and the Houthis have launched direct and deadly attacks on Saudi Arabia — the latest front in the regional conflict that began in February, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. Saudi Arabia fields an array of U.S.-supplied fighter jets and missile defenses, but it has been unable to defeat the Houthis in past rounds of conflict, and its other allies have been reluctant to commit ground forces to the fight. Syria, by contrast, has a supply of battle-hardened fighters after its long civil war — and has so far stayed on the sidelines.
Damascus also owes Riyadh. The Saudis provided funds to Syrian rebels during the civil war and have promised much-needed financial assistance for Syria's postwar reconstruction, and Saudi Arabia has been key to Syria's reintegration into the Arab world, which largely shunned it under Bashar Assad. The deployment talk runs alongside a bigger pact: Syrian officials have said publicly that the country is discussing joining the joint defense agreement Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed in August — the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, which commits the three to regard an attack against one as an attack on all. The two Syrian officials said a decision had already been made, though not publicly announced, for Syria to join; the regional official said talks were still ongoing. One concern, the regional official said, is that Syria might ask the other countries for their support against Israel: since Assad's ouster in December 2024, Israeli forces have held a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria, and al-Sharaa — who says his government does not seek a conflict with Israel — has called for them to withdraw.
Joining the Saudi fight would be a change of stance for Damascus. Syria has turned down proposals by President Donald Trump for its forces to intervene against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, and al-Sharaa has said his focus is on rebuilding Syria after its lengthy civil war and that he wants to avoid getting embroiled in new conflicts. America's interest in the Saudi side of this war is direct: the kingdom fights the Houthis with U.S.-supplied jets and missile defenses, and the Houthis answer to Iran, the power the U.S. and Israel struck in February.
What this means: for ordinary people, a Syrian force on the Saudi-Yemen border raises the stakes on both sides of it. The officials themselves flagged the first risk — Syrian involvement in the fighting against the Houthis could expose Syria to attacks by militias in neighbouring Iraq that are allied with the Houthis, widening a war that has already reached Saudi soil. And every widening of this regional conflict threatens the oil and shipping routes the world's households pay for at the pump and the checkout. For now, though, the deployment remains what the record shows: a plan described by three unnamed officials, advisers already in place, a dismissal on the record in Damascus, and silence from Riyadh — with the fighters themselves, on the officials' own account, not yet sent.
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