Saudi Arabia has deployed 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area, the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television reported on Thursday.
Al Arabiya said it had obtained a video showing Iraqi soldiers in the desert area east of the Iraqi city of Karbala after they quit their positions on the border.
The world's top oil exporter shares an 800-km border with Iraq, where Islamic State insurgents and other Sunni Muslim militant groups seized towns and cities in a lightning advance last month.
King Abdullah has ordered all necessary measures to protect the Kingdom against potential “terrorist threats”, state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.
Al Arabiya said on its website that Saudi troops fanned into the border region after Iraqi government forces abandoned positions, leaving the Saudi and Syrian frontiers unprotected. It also confirmed it had obtained a video showing some 2,500 Iraqi soldiers in the desert area east of the Iraqi city of Karbala after pulling back from the border.
An Officer in the video aired by al-Arabiya said that the soldiers had been ordered to quit their posts without justification. The authenticity of the recording could not immediately be verified.
Meanwhile, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister said on Tuesday during a visit to Moscow that Tehran has not received a request from Baghdad to supply it with weapons but is ready to do so if asked.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that Tehran had no plans to send troops to back government forces fighting the Sunni “terrorists” of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who have captured swathes of Iraq as well as Syria.
“We have no troops or Armed Forces on Iraqi soil now. We have no plans to send troops to Iraq,” he told a press conference.
“Iraq has come up with no request to get arms from us. But if it does, then, within the framework of international law and rules as well as bilateral agreements, the arms that Iraq needs to conduct an effective fight against terrorism will be provided,” he said.
The US has dispatched military advisers to Iraq to support Baghdad and Russia delivered five Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets late on Saturday.
Source: Reuters; Al Arabiya – File Photo
