Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan will hold an urgent, high-level meeting under a joint defense pact to discuss ways to support the kingdom amid attacks by Yemen's Houthis, while Saudi's top religious authority told troops to be ready to lay down their lives to fight their Iran-aligned enemy. The mobilization comes as the Houthis have launched strikes on the Saudi-backed government in Yemen and repeatedly fired into Saudi Arabia, disrupting oil flows from the world's largest energy exporter.
The escalation is part of a wider Middle East war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran in February. The Houthis said they had fired dozens of missiles and drones at Saudi targets on Thursday, while authorities in Saudi Arabia said they had intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by Houthi fighters. Saudi Arabia earlier had issued emergency alerts for areas including the holy city of Mecca, Jeddah and Yanbu, the main Saudi Red Sea oil port.
Regional Alliance Mobilizes
Turkey's Chief of General Staff General Selcuk Bayraktaroglu will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet his Saudi and Pakistani counterparts as part of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, the Defense Ministry said on Friday. The agreement stipulates that an attack against any one of the parties constitutes an attack against all parties, effectively transforming Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia into a broader regional security crisis.
The Saudi, Pakistani and Turkish foreign ministers met within the framework of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, according to a Saudi foreign ministry statement. They condemned the attacks targeting Mecca and other civilian sites, while affirming Saudi Arabia's right to defend itself. "The ministers also discussed arrangements for holding an urgent meeting of the chiefs of staff of the three countries to discuss ways to support Saudi Arabia under the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement," the statement said.
The Iranian Connection
Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, the kingdom's top religious authority, called on soldiers to be ready to lay down their lives to fight the Houthis until the group is ousted from power, according to a statement posted by the Saudi state news agency late on Thursday. The stark language reflects the kingdom's view of the Houthis not as an independent Yemeni faction but as an extension of Iranian power projection into the Arabian Peninsula.
The meeting was announced shortly after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sought to distance Iran from the Houthis in an American television interview on Thursday. "The Houthis are responsible for their own actions," Pezeshkian told the Fox News program "Special Report with Bret Baier" a day after he appeared before the UN General Assembly in New York. The denial comes despite years of documented Iranian weapons shipments, training programs, and financial support for the Houthi movement.
Humanitarian Toll
UNICEF reported rising child malnutrition in Yemen as the fighting intensifies, highlighting a severe humanitarian crisis accompanying the conflict. The deteriorating conditions underscore the human cost of a conflict driven by regional power struggles, where civilian populations bear the consequences of decisions made in Tehran, Riyadh, and Sanaa.
Why This Matters:
The activation of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement transforms what began as a Yemeni civil war into a potential multi-state military confrontation. Saudi Arabia's invocation of collective defense provisions signals that the kingdom views Houthi attacks—and by extension, Iranian proxy warfare—as an existential threat requiring regional military cooperation. The targeting of Mecca, Islam's holiest city, and critical energy infrastructure like Yanbu demonstrates the Houthis' willingness to strike at the heart of Saudi economic and religious legitimacy. Iran's public denial of responsibility, delivered even as its proxies fire Iranian-supplied missiles at civilian targets, reveals the strategic advantage Tehran gains from proxy warfare: deniability without accountability. Meanwhile, Yemen's children starve as the conflict's architects pursue regional dominance. The question isn't whether Saudi Arabia has the right to defend itself—it's whether the international community will continue treating Iranian proxy networks as independent actors rather than extensions of Tehran's regional strategy.