Saudi Arabia wants its boots on the ground to tackle ISIS threats

Saudi Arabia has indicated its willingness to have its boots on the ground and is ready to join any ground operation that the US-led coalition would launch against Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria. This has been committed by Brigadier General Ahmed al Assiri in the Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 4 February 2016.

The Brigadier is a spokesman for the Saudi-led Arab coalition that is battling Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen. The Kingdom is an active member of the coalition that is at present fighting IS in Syria, and had carried out more than 190 bombing raids there since 2014.
However, in his opinion, the only way to defeat the extremist group is to put boots on the ground because aerial operations are not the ideal solution and a twin mix of aerial and ground operations could be a better option.
On this subject, US State Department spokesman John Kirby has remarked that the coalition is supportive of partners contributing more in the fight against IS, but he had not yet seen the Saudi proposal and cannot pass any comment on the subject.
Interestingly, only last month, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had commented that several members of the coalition are doing "nothing at all" to help destroy the jihadis.
The USA has carried out the bulk of the 9,800 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the summer of 2014. Later, in November, the United Arab Emirates, which is carrying out airstrikes against IS in Syria and Iraq, had indicated that it was willing to send ground troops to Syria. A couple of US senators have called for 100,000 soldiers, preferably from Sunni states apart from Americans, to fight IS in Syria.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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