Saudi Arabia is ready to join any ground operation the US-led
coalition against the Islamic State group in Syria might decide on, a
general from the kingdom said on Thursday."If there is any willingness in the coalition to go in the ground operation, we will contribute positively in that," Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri told AFP.
Since late 2014 Saudi Arabia has been part of a US-led coalition which officially has 65 members and has been bombing the Islamic State Sunni extremist group which seized large parts of Syria and Iraq.
Assiri is spokesperson for a separate Saudi-led Arab coalition which, since March, has conducted airstrikes and ground operations in Yemen.
That coalition supports the government there in its fight against Huthi rebels who seized much of the country and are backed by the kingdom's regional rival Iran.
Iran is also one of the main allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose regime has been fighting an insurgency for about five years. Saudi Arabia supports more moderate rebels against Assad's forces.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said in January that several members of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria are doing "nothing at all" to help destroy the jihadists.
The United States has carried out the bulk of the roughly 9 800 airstrikes launched in Iraq and Syria since the summer of 2014. Saudi Arabia carried out high-profile initial airstrikes against the jihadists in Syria, but participation by the kingdom and other Gulf members of the coalition declined when they began airstrikes in Yemen.
"We did not stop our operation in Syria in spite of the operation we have in Yemen," Assiri said.
In November, the United Arab Emirates said it was ready to commit ground troops against jihadists in Syria.
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