Saudi Arabia is delivering military equipment to Syrian rebels in an effort to stop bloodshed by President Bashar al-Assad's regime, a top Arab diplomat said on Saturday, March 17.

"Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the Free Syrian Army," the diplomat said.

"This is a Saudi initiative to stop the massacres in Syria," he added saying further "details will follow at a later time."

The announcement came two days after the kingdom said it had shut down its embassy in Syria and withdrawn all its staff.

It also followed a brief meeting on the Syrian crisis last week between Jordan's King Abdullah and the Saudi monarch in Riyadh.

There was no official reaction to the statement from Riyadh or Amman, which this month called for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis, arguing Jordan was among the worst affected by its repercussions.

Jordan shares its northern border with Syria, through which more than 65 percent of its trade transits. According to local officials, some 80,000 Syrians are estimated to have fled to the kingdom since March 2011, AFP reported.