Saudi Arabia wouldn’t dare send ground troops to war-torn Syria, the chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said Saturday, after Riyadh opened up the possibility of such a deployment. <br /> <br />The Sunni-ruled kingdom, Iran’s regional rival, has said it could “contribute positively” if the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in Syria decided on ground action. <br /> <br />But Major General Ali Jafari, commander of the Guards, said such a move would amount to suicide for Saudi Arabia. <br /> <br />“I don’t think they would dare do that… If they do, they will inflict a coup de grace on themselves,” he said, according to Fars news agency, a media outlet close to the Guards. <br /> <br />“They thought that through support and financial aid they could make gains in Syria but the recent victories by the resistance front have disrupted all of their calculations,” Jafari said. <br /> <br />Iran, the strongest regional ally of President Bashar al-Assad, openly provides financial and military support to the Damascus government but denies having troops on the ground in Syria. <br /> <br />Tehran provides military advisers to Assad’s army, as well as organising Iranian, Afghan, Iraqi and Pakistani “volunteers” to fight rebels in Syria. <br /> <br />Jafari was speaking in Tehran at a funeral ceremony of Brigadier General Mohsen Ghajarian and five other Guards members killed Wednesday in Aleppo province of northern Syria. <br /> <br />Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council and a former chief of the Guards, also poured scorn on Saudi Arabia’s possible presence on the ground in Syria. <br /> <br />“In such a situation, the clash of Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria together, and then the entrance of America… eventually a large regional war is possible,” the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying. <br /> <br />If the Saudi government, known for “madly taking action”, embarked on such a move the entire region other than Iran but “including Saudi Arabia, will be consumed by fire”. <br /> <br />Iran, the Middle East’s main Shiite power, and Saudi Arabia have long been at odds over the conflict in Syria. <br /> <br />The Gulf kingdom severed all ties with Iran last month after demonstrators stormed its embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad, Iran’s second city, following Riyadh’s execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric and activist.
