Saudi says discussed Syria incursion with US

A Saudi official says the kingdom and the US discussed the possibility of a ground incursion in Syria two weeks ago but they have not made a decision.

“It was discussed two weeks ago in Brussels,” Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, an aide to Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, said on Monday.

“It was discussed at the political level but it wasn’t discussed as a military mission,” Reuters quoted him as saying in an interview.

Saudi Defense Minister Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud met his counterparts from the US-led coalition which has been carrying out airstrikes inside Syria since September 2014, Asseri said.

“Once this is organized, and decided how many troops and how they will go and where they will go, we will participate in that,” he said.

“We need to discuss at the military level very extensively with the military experts to make sure that we have a plan,” Asseri said.

The kingdom, he said, was now ready to carry out airstrikes from Turkey’s Incirlik air base, where four Saudi fighter jets arrived last week.

The US is already using Incirlik for attacks inside Syria.