DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Saudi Arabia offers hefty cash to Syria's tribal leaders in eastern Syria to support the U.S.-backed militants in order to threaten Turkey, media reports said.
The Arabic-language al-Watan newspaper quoted special sources in eastern Syria as saying that Saudi State Minister Samer al-Sahban in his meeting with Syrian tribal leaders asked for helping Kurdish fighters.
Several U.S. officials were accompanying al-Sahban during his meeting with tribal leaders of eastern Syria, it added.
They have offered to give a hefty sum of $50 million to them indirectly through local councils and also direct financial aid, the paper further said.
Al-Watan newspaper noted that the efforts by Saudi Arabia are in line with support for the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the presence of al-Sahban in the region is in line with Riyadh's confrontation with Turkey on the issue of Kurds. The daily noted that Turkey-Saudi Arabia relations are currently very strained.
The newspaper also quoted special sources as saying that Saudi Arabia threatens Turkey and tries to include itself in the Syrian power balance through the Kurds, specially the SDF.
Meanwhile, Secretary General of Popular Party Sheikh Navaf Tarad al-Molhem, who is a tribal leader of al-Hasaneh tribe pointed to al-Sahban's cash offer to tribal leaders, and said that the leaders will confront any effort by Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Turkey to disintegrate Syria.
In a relevant development last week, the tribal leaders in Dayr al-Zawr voiced strong opposition to the Saudi plots to support the SDF's separatist measures in the eastern parts of the province.
Al-Watan newspaper reported that al-Jamel tribe in eastern Dayr al-Zawr had issued a statement to emphasize its opposition to the appointment of SDF-affiliated Ahmed al-Khabil as the Sheikh of al-Bakir tribes in eastern Dayr al-Zawr and the head of Syria's military democratic council.

 Members of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) walk in the town of Baghouz in Syria's eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr on March 24, 2019. (