Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — Iran has reported that Saudi Arabia sent thousands of
troops into Yemen.

Iranian sources said the Royal Saudi Army sent thousands of troops into
Yemen earlier this month in an attempt to quell the Shi’ite revolt. They
said the Saudi ground forces were accompanied by armored combat vehicles and
helicopters in an operation that continued for at least a week.

Iran’s state-owned Fars news agency said Saudi Arabia sent 6,000 troops into northern Yemen. In a report on April 9, Fars quoted Shi’ite rebel sources as saying that the Saudi invasion was meant to block the Shi’ite revolt from infiltrating the Gulf Cooperation Council kingdom.

“Saudi Arabia wants to end Yemen’s revolution by any means and at any cost,” Faris Abu Barea, a member of the Iranian-backed Believing Youth movement, said.

Yemen and the United States have asserted that Iran was playing a major role in the Shi’ite revolt in northern Yemen. Both Sanaa and Washington said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard was training and equipping Shi’ite rebels, including sending weapons through the Gulf to the northern Yemen coast.

A Western diplomatic source confirmed that Saudi Arabia has sent troops
into northern Yemen. But the source said the number of Saudi troops deployed
in Yemen was much smaller than that reported by Fars.

Iran also reported a Saudi project to construct a wall along the
1,600-kilometer border with Yemen. Fars said the wall was meant to stop
Shi’ite fighters from entering Saudi Arabia and reaching the oil-rich
Eastern Province, which contains a large Shi’ite community.

Saudi Arabia is afraid of the influence of Yemen’s revolution on its own
people because it is ruled by a tyrannical royal regime,” Abu Barea said.

  Iran reports Saudi ground forces invaded Yemen, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, oil-rich Saudi Eastern Province, Royal Saudi Army, Shi’ite revolt in Yemen