The makkah pact’s first test: Can pakistan defend saudi arabia without entering yemen’s war?

The Middle East is entering another dangerous phase, and this time the test isn’t hypothetical anymore. Yemen’s Houthis have just made their biggest advance in years down the Red Sea coast, seizing the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands near Bab el-Mandeb and pushing toward Mokha — reigniting a civil war that’s now well into its second decade. In the process, they’ve handed the newly signed Makkah Joint Defence Agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye its first real test, barely a month after the ink dried. The pact was signed at Al-Safa Palace on August 7, 2026, by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Its central clause is blunt: an […]