Fierce fighting in Aleppo forces thousands to flee 02:15
Saudi Arabia's fresh public willingness to send ground troops into Syria is drawing ridicule from the kingdom's chief regional rival.
The
commander of Iran's revolutionary guard on Saturday mocked Saudi
Arabia's declaration that it is prepared to commit ground troops to
fight ISIS in war-torn Syria.
"They
claim they will send troops (to Syria), but I don't think they will dare
do so," Maj. Gen. Ali Jafari told reporters in Tehran, according to
Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency. "They have a classic army and
history tells us such armies stand no chance in fighting irregular
resistance forces."
"This will be like
a coup de grace for them. Apparently, they see no other way but this,
and if this is the case, then their fate is sealed," Jafari added,
according to Fars.
Iran and Saudi
Arabia, led by regimes representing opposing Islamic sects, already are
bitter rivals. A years-long civil war in Syria has stoked tensions --
Iran is one of the Syrian regime's few allies, while Saudi Arabia has
given financial aid and weapons to rebels.
On
Thursday, Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmad Asiri, a military adviser to the
kingdom's defense minster, said that the Saudis are willing to send --
as part of an international coalition -- ground troops into Syria to
fight ISIS, the terror group that has captured swaths of territory in
Syria during the war there.
And
on Friday, two Saudi officials told CNN that the kingdom plans to run
in March a multinational military training exercise -- involving as many
as 150,000 troops -- to prepare for future anti-ISIS operations.
Most
of the personnel will be Saudis; troops from Egypt, Sudan and Jordan
have already arrived in the kingdom for the exercise, and troops from
other countries -- Morocco, Turkey, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates
and Qatar -- are expected, the officials said.
Saudi Arabia also participates in a U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against ISIS in Syria.
The
predominantly Shiite republic of Iran is no friend to the Sunni terror
group ISIS, but it also couldn't be a fan of a Saudi military presence
in a country whose regime Iran supports.
Jafari's
comment came three days after peace talks for the Syrian conflict were
put on hold amid anger among Syrian opposition groups over a Russian air campaign over the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Russia openly joined the civil war in September, backing the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with airstrikes.
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