Local Editor
An anonymous Egyptian government source denied claims by Riyadh that it offered to aid the Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen, by deploying 40,000 ground troops to the war-torn country.
According to the source quoted by a number of media outlets, Cairo was asked to send troops but the request was rejected, which served as “the fundamental cause of the dispute between the two countries” in recent months.
“Sending any troops out of the country requires the approval of National Defense Council and the Council of Ministers and the approval of the Egyptian Parliament," the source adds.
On Monday the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition Ahmed Asiri told Al Arabiya that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered the 40,000 troops.
“The Egyptian military is currently taking part with naval and aerial forces but at that time we were talking about around 30 to 40 thousand ground troops," Asiri told the Saudi state-run news network.
The Egyptian rebuttal of these claims explains that Yemen “is not safe for landing ground forces” and that Cairo rejected the Saudi request anticipating a “heavy loss of life”.
The Saudis have been bombing Yemen since March 2015. The bloody campaign has killed thousands and is literally starving the population. But on the military front Riyadh has had very little in the way of success.
The Yemeni army and the Houthi Ansarullah movement have been able to fight off the Saudis and their proxies despite the relentless bombardment.
The lack of results and the high civilian casualties have made the war very unpopular for Saudi Arabia’s traditional allies who have resisted Riyadh’s calls to become more actively involved.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
