Syria’s Jolani May Send Troops To Yemen To Fight Houthis

Syria is said to be “cautiously” considering sending troops to assist Saudi Arabia in the fight against the Houthis in Yemen, Reuters and others are reporting Wednesday.

An anonymous US official described that this was a focus of conversation between Syria’s self-declared President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the two met in Riyadh on Tuesday.

Ironically it was the Saudis that heavily supported Sharaa’s rise and overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in the first place. Sharaa, previously known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was the founder and leader of Syrian al-Qaeda (Nusra Front, later Hayat Tahrir al-Sham). He had also fought Assad while initially under ISIS, and had taken control of Idlib.

So while for many years foreign fighters flowed from Saudi Arabia into Syria, now the jihadi pipeline looks to go in the opposite direction.

The hardline Sunnis of the new Damascus government are well-known for viewing all Shiites as ‘apostates’ – and so there could be plenty of willing participants to go and fight the Houthis, who are Shia and backed by Iran. Some reports speculate there are already thousands of Syrian mercenaries as well as ‘volunteer’ fighters on the ground in Yemen.

“Options being considered include defensive aid to protect the kingdom from attacks, or deployment of forces in an offensive capacity to help Saudi-backed Yemeni troops fight the Houthis,” according to sources cited in the reports.

A US official has said that Riyadh has specifically requested the deployment of Syrian forces against the Houthis, perhaps as ‘payback’ for Saudi funding for the jihad in Syria over the prior decade.

However, a Syrian diplomatic source has also indicated Damascus is placing priority on its own continued problems inside the country, also given Israel currently occupies a swathe of southern Syria, and the economy has yet to rebound after years of US sanctions (recently lifted for post-Assad Syria).

Axios has noted in its reporting that Sharaa is “seriously considering it, but he hasn’t decided. Further, the Trump administration “not opposed in principle to such a move,” US officials cited in the same report said.

Below: Ansar Allah sources have meanwhile pointed out that Jolani’s militants are merely dozens of miles from Israeli positions and yet don’t fire a single shot toward them:

Sayed Abdel Malek Al Houthi: “The Saudis want to involve Turkey and Pakistan in the war. The Turkish context is to import the Takfiri Jolani gangs from Syria to Yemen. The Takfiri groups in Syria stand idle when Israel is 35km away but want to fight in Yemen” @sneako https://t.co/GjNgUuS1Ak

— Islamic Resistance (@resistance_ZA) September 21, 2026

So it seems one additional benefit of the US-Gulf axis having a puppet in Damascus is that Syrian troops can be essentially used as fresh fodder to be thrown into regional proxy wars. It seems this is an option the Saudis are now pursuing, also as they seek greater military support from allies Islamic allies Pakistan and Turkey.