Syria’s 20,000 Troops for Yemen Would Put a Bomb Beside the Fire

US officials who spoke to Reuters were worried about the sectarian dimension, and they are right to be. The Houthis follow Zaidi Shia Islam. Sending them Sunni fighters whose formative war was against Assad, and whose movement grew out of al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise before breaking with it in 2016, hands the Houthis the story they have always wanted to tell: that this is a war on their faith, not a war over a coup. A civil war becomes a religious one.

The second problem is what a foreign army says about Yemen’s own forces. Bringing in a Syrian expeditionary force is a quiet admission that the internationally recognised government’s troops cannot beat the Houthis by themselves.

Third, al-Qaeda never left Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula still carries out attacks in the south and east. Putting thousands of men with a jihadist past inside the same country is an invitation for the two to find each other. It would be a disaster.

Fourth, there is no guarantee these men behave like soldiers. Many of them fought for a cause, under an emir, not for a state. Take them out of Syria, away from Sharaa’s personal authority and the bonds that hold their units together, and drop them into a foreign mountain war: some may refuse orders, some may desert, and some may never fight the Houthis at all.

Finally, the deployment would harden the enemy. The Houthis would see fighters who rose against Assad and, in some cases, fought Shia militias in Iraq, arriving on their front line. Whatever restraint they still have toward Yemen’s government forces would disappear.

None of this is a verdict on Syrian soldiers as such. These are the questions US officials and American analysts are now asking about the Axios report, and they are the right ones.

Sharaa’s motive is simple. He wants to be rid of these men. European governments keep raising the same objection with Damascus: the divisions built from HTS ranks are, in their eyes, former terrorists in uniform. Sending ten or twenty thousand of them to Yemen solves a problem at home and with Europe at the same time.

It also earns him a great deal. He moves closer to Riyadh, already one of the biggest financial backers of Syria’s recovery. He moves closer to Washington. And he performs a service the Saudis will not forget after the war.

There is a price he would ask in return. If Sharaa pulls 20,000 men away from the Damascus area, he will need a US guarantee that Israel will not use the gap. Israeli forces have pushed into southern Syria again and again since Assad fell in December 2024, and Israeli commanders have spoken openly about Damascus as if it were within reach. A personal commitment from Donald Trump that Israel will not move a kilometre closer to Damascus would be worth more to Sharaa than the troops themselves.

Will he send them? Nobody outside a small circle knows. But the US officials who briefed Axios expect him to accept, and the logic points the same way.

The Syrian question matters because Saudi Arabia has made its choice. The Houthis are now pressing on the kingdom’s real weak point: its development and civilian infrastructure. They are no longer content with refineries and air bases. Attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and on Abha’s airport on October 6 and 7 killed three people and injured 36, according to Saudi civil aviation authorities. Debris from an intercepted missile damaged a kindergarten and a medical clinic complex in Riyadh the next day. The New York Times correspondent in Riyadh reported that Saudi authorities ordered the evacuation of the tower across from him.

Departure boards filled with cancellations. Lufthansa suspended flights to Riyadh until October 16, and Air India, IndiGo and Akasa Air cancelled theirs. The Washington Post identified civilian infrastructure as Saudi Arabia’s weak point; The New York Times pointed to Vision 2030 itself, the crown prince’s pledge to carry the kingdom into a new era with a World Cup, a World Expo and giant projects. Reuters has already reported that the NEOM stadium planned for the 2034 World Cup has been shelved.

What the Houthis are doing now is many times worse than anything they did in seven years of war before the truce. Israeli and open-source intelligence accounts also claimed that a store of sensitive weapons was hit at King Khalid; Riyadh has not confirmed it. And still Saudi Arabia has not given in. It has closed the door on negotiation and chosen escalation. Every strike on a civilian airport builds sympathy for the kingdom at home and abroad, and every strike puts its new allies on the spot.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, widely called the Mecca Pact, in August and invoked it on October 5. The New York Times then reported, citing a Pakistani official who declined to be named, that Pakistani fighter jets had joined Saudi aircraft in striking the Houthis. Pakistan’s Information Ministry called the report “fake and fabricated”.

If the report holds, it is a turning point. In 2015 Pakistan’s parliament refused Riyadh’s request to join the war on the Houthis. This time Pakistan’s leaders are betting everything on Saudi Arabia, and they are taking real risks to do it. Pakistan shares a border with Iran. As much as a fifth of its population is Shia, and Tehran could stir unrest if images emerge of Pakistani jets bombing Houthi crowds. And a country that sends fighter jets can find itself pulled into sending ground troops. Pakistan’s leaders have decided the Saudi relationship is worth more than all of that.

Türkiye is moving more cautiously. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insists the pact is defensive: “This is not an offensive agreement.” Ankara is still discussing troops on the ground inside Saudi Arabia, which requires parliament’s approval. That is the petrol beside the fire: the Houthis are hitting civilian targets, and if Turkish soldiers are killed, especially in large numbers, Türkiye would be drawn into the war itself. France says it is still studying how to support Riyadh.

The New York Times also noted that Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella sits inside the alliance. That option is not realistic. Washington cannot use nuclear weapons against Iran; it is not going to let Saudi Arabia’s ally use them on the Houthis. And the Houthis sit on the Saudi border. A nuclear strike on them would also mean losing Najran, Abha and the whole of the kingdom’s south.

The danger in all this is Houthi audacity. As one American newspaper put it, the Houthis do not mind being punished. They escalate knowing Saudi Arabia will retaliate hard, and they are ready to absorb it. What is there to destroy in the areas around Sanaa that they control? Ruins. Kill civilians there and the Houthis, who have shown nothing but contempt for the lives of their own people, will accept the losses.

Saudi Arabia, in contrast, has a great deal to lose with every strike. That is the whole Houthi wager: that whatever the kingdom does to them, the targets they hit are worth more, and Riyadh will eventually be unable to bear it.