Syrian Cleric Abu Yahya Al-Shami Welcomes Syrian Role in Yemen War Against Houthis

A November 6, 2026 Reuters report quoted a senior U.S. official saying that Syrian advisers and trainers, who had gained combat experience during Syria’s 13-year civil war, were traveling to Saudi Arabia to help train Saudi and Yemeni forces. Two Syrian sources told Reuters that dozens of Syrian military personnel had arrived in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. A senior Saudi official told Reuters that the alliance with Syria mainly involved restructuring the Syrian military, but also included sharing Syrian combat experience in fighting militias, and that joint training exercises were underway with more planned.

Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted several Internationally Recognized Government (IRG) military sources and a defense official, who said that hundreds of Syrian troops had been deployed to both sides of the Saudi-Yemeni border. Other senior IRG sources claimed that the first phase would include about 3,000 Syrian soldiers in Yemen, some of whom had already arrived, and that as many as 10,000 could eventually be deployed. A source in the IRG Defense Ministry said that technical teams from the Syrian and Saudi defense ministries were working in Riyadh to finalize arrangements for Syrian forces to join anti-Houthi operations. The London-based daily Al-Araby Al-Jadeed quoted a source in the Syrian Defense Ministry who confirmed that Syrian military personnel had been sent to Saudi Arabia for training and that Syria had a military attaché in the country.

The Saudi government, the Syrian Defense Ministry, the U.S. State Department, the IRG and the Houthis did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. On November 7, the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) denied reports that Syrian soldiers had been sent to Yemen. SANA said current military agreements with Saudi Arabia were limited to military training and the exchange of expertise, and suggested they could develop into a mutual defense agreement between the two countries, or into Syria joining the Mecca Alliance between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.

The source also reports on commentary by Syrian jihadi cleric Muhammad Bughayth Al-Hadidi, known as Abu Yahya Al-Shami, who welcomed the reports of Syrian military participation in the Yemen conflict as an opportunity for jihad that also served Syria’s interests. In a November 6 Telegram post, Al-Shami wrote that Syrian advisers’ training of forces to fight the Houthis was an opportunity for Syrians to support their brothers in the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen, gain materially, and keep fighting. While acknowledging that Syrians faced other dangers closer to home, he said that “continuing [military] preparations and jihad whenever possible is obligatory.”

In a later post, Al-Shami rejected arguments against supporting Saudi Arabia because of its persecution and imprisonment of jihadi clerics such as ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Al-Turayfi. He asserted that Al-Turayfi and his brothers also supported Syrian help for Saudi Arabia. Regarding Israel, Al-Shami referred to the “Zionists” and called “liberating land from them” a religious duty that must be preceded by increasing strength. He suggested that gaining the goodwill of Saudi Arabia and the IRG might help Syria in the future “great battle of liberation.” On the following day, he wrote that fighters in foreign conflicts such as those in Libya and Yemen should be “righteous mujahideen” rather than “corrupt mercenaries.”

The report also describes Al-Shami’s earlier posts. On September 18, he cited a Türkiye Today report that Syria had “politely declined” a Saudi proposal to recruit fighters against the Houthis, and that the Syrian government did not prevent individuals from leaving to fight but bore no responsibility for such “individual participation.” On October 7, he argued that defending Yemenis against the Houthis was obligatory for the IRG’s defensive jihad, and described fighting in Yemen as a risk-weighted opportunity, listing possible drawbacks including draining Syrian resources, distracting Syrians from confrontation with Israel, and the risks of Houthi bombings. He called on Islamic scholars and experts to decide whether Syrians should enter the conflict.

In early September, Al-Shami and other Syria-based jihadi clerics discussed IRG advances against the Houthis, expressing support for the IRG. Other foreign jihadi clerics based in Syria dismissed the IRG as un-Islamic, and one argued that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was the only group in Yemen fighting to implement shari’a and deserved support.

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