The Makkah Alliance has been called defensive. Now it has to prove it.

By Mansoor Qaisar, Islamabad 

When Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye signed the Makkah Alliance for Defence in August, most of us read it as a statement of intent. It took barely two months for that to change. On October 5, ministers and commanders met in Riyadh and agreed to activate collective deterrence measures and send forces and capabilities to the Kingdom at speed. The same meeting appointed retired Lt Gen Nauman Mahmood, a Pakistani, as the alliance’s first secretary-general for three years.

Then came Thursday. Two Houthi attacks hit Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, one on the facilities and one on a Saudia aircraft. Three Saudi citizens died, among them a pilot, and people of several nationalities were wounded. Hundreds of flights were cancelled, and European regulators widened their no-fly advisory. By Friday the airport was running normally again. The signal had still been sent: the capital is within reach.

I think this is the moment the alliance has to answer a question it has so far dodged. The pact is modelled on NATO’s Article 5, so an attack on one is treated as an attack on all. Yet all three governments describe it as purely defensive. Both statements can be true only if someone explains where the line sits.

This is not only about Yemen

It helps to remember what kind of war this is. Reuters ties the escalation to the wider US-Iran confrontation. Iranian attacks have choked traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which makes the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait far more valuable than usual. A month ago the Houthis took ground along that coast. Saudi Arabia has answered with a growing air campaign, Sanaa included, and Yemeni government forces backed by Riyadh have launched a large offensive that their government says is meant to retake everything the Houthis have conquered. The coalition says it hit 324 targets and gave those forces air cover.

So the state this alliance is rushing to protect is also a state on the attack. That does not make Saudi Arabia’s position illegitimate, because it is being struck hard. But it does mean “defensive” cannot be assumed. It has to be shown.

Where the language starts to strain

Prince Khalid bin Salman said the committee would act against the attacks and “all those responsible for them”. I keep coming back to that phrase. It could mean the Houthis. It could mean their sponsors. The statement does not say.

Islamabad has been more careful. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif says Pakistani and Turkish forces are in a supportive role while only Saudi troops fight, and he has described that support as including reconnaissance. His test for the pact to apply is unprovoked aggression or spillover from Yemen into Saudi territory, which is a fair standard. And on October 9 the Foreign Office spokesman said allied forces would not attack from or inside Yemen, dismissing reports of Pakistani strikes as speculation.

I take those statements at face value. Nothing in the public record puts Pakistani or Turkish soldiers in combat in Yemen. But “supportive” covers a lot of ground, and some of the reporting is awkward. Middle East Eye, citing Reuters, says Pakistan flew four plane loads of weapons to Aden for the Saudi-backed government. I could not find any official Pakistani confirmation, so that stays an unverified report for now. If it is accurate, though, it is hard to square with the Foreign Office line. Guarding Saudi cities from missiles is one thing. Arming one side of a ground offensive is another, and people in Pakistan are entitled to know which one their country is doing.

How many troops, exactly?

The numbers in circulation come from reporters, not from the government. In May, Reuters reported that Pakistan had sent 8,000 troops, a fighter squadron and an air-defence system. On October 2 it quoted a Pakistani official saying 30,000 to 40,000 troops were helping guard Saudi land borders and intercept drones and missiles.

The army’s spokesman has now confirmed that Pakistani forces are in the Kingdom in “multiple capabilities and domains” and have been for decades. That is accurate, and it is also a little convenient. A decades-old training and advisory mission is a very different thing from a force of tens of thousands on border defence. Nobody in government has told the public which description fits.

I understand why troop positions are kept quiet. Revealing them can get people killed. But the overall size, purpose and limits of a commitment this large are a matter of public policy, and they should not be treated as an operational secret.

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Ankara has not finished its homework

The pact brings together NATO’s second-largest army, the Muslim world’s only nuclear-armed state and the leading Gulf power. On paper that is formidable. In practice, the three are not at the same stage. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said Turkiye is still assessing how it can help, and the Turkish parliament has not ratified the agreement. Reports say the government plans to take it to parliament, which would clear the way for a deployment. Until that happens, Ankara’s role rests on executive decisions alone, and a pact that lacks legislative backing at home will be hard to sustain once casualties rise.

Pakistan’s difficult position

Pakistan has the most to balance. Years ago its parliament voted unanimously against sending combat troops into the Yemen conflict, and nobody has formally revoked that stance. Pakistan also has a long border with Iran, which supports the Houthis, and a large Shia community at home. Any sense that the country is slipping from defence into offence would carry costs inside Pakistan as well as abroad.

And Islamabad is not short of other worries. India on the eastern frontier, Afghanistan on the western one, and militancy in Balochistan all take up men and money. The economy is fragile, too. A new $1.2 billion IMF deal comes with a warning that the Middle East conflict is weighing on growth, and the families who depend on Gulf remittances feel every escalation directly.

None of this is an argument for walking away from Riyadh. The bond is old and deep, built on faith, history and shared interest. It is an argument for a commitment that Pakistan can actually carry.

On adding new members

People keep asking whether other Muslim countries will join. The Foreign Office has said expansion is “not on the cards” at the moment. I read that as a pause, not a refusal. A bigger alliance is not automatically a stronger one, since every new member brings its own threat perceptions and its own limits on using force. The pause is reasonable, but only if the three founders can make their own arrangement work first.

Defence is not the same as victory

Say the air defences work perfectly. Yemen’s war would still be there. Missiles can be shot down, but the political, territorial and sectarian quarrels behind this conflict will not be solved by interceptors. The danger is a slow slide: an alliance created to protect civilians gradually becomes responsible for a campaign with no clear end. That slide is most likely if Saudi offensive goals, like taking back the Red Sea coast, start to be treated as the alliance’s own.

What I would ask of the alliance

I would start with three things. First, publish a short statement of what the alliance defends, what triggers collective action and what it will never do. It should cover cross-border operations and arms supplied to forces inside Yemen. Second, brief the legislatures. Pakistan’s parliament should hear in closed session what the troop levels and rules of engagement are, and Turkiye should finish its ratification. Third, say plainly that all this military readiness is meant to bring about talks, and back that with real work through Oman, the UN and regional partners alongside it.

How we will know

The alliance began with the promise that regional powers can look after their own security. Thursday’s attack shows how badly that is needed. But I will not judge it by troop numbers or by how many flags appear at the next meeting. I will watch whether Riyadh’s airports stay open, whether civilians are safer, whether the war stays contained, and whether the governments involved can tell their own citizens, honestly, what they have signed up for.

If they can, this could become a template for regional cooperation. If they cannot, it will be remembered as an alliance that promised more than it defined.

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