On Friday, Turkey joined a defense agreement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan with considerable fanfare. The pact unites three powerful Sunni nations hostile to Israel—one of them, Pakistan, a nuclear power—and the door remains open for additional members. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said of Egypt: “I believe that in the next stage Egypt will be among us, as part of the alliance. Right now we are already treating each other as alliance members.”
2+Under the agreement, an attack on any of the three countries constitutes an attack on the other two. Now those understandings are already being tested. Early this morning, a fire broke out at a facility belonging to Saudi oil company Aramco in the southern city of Jizan. Shortly afterward, Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had launched a drone at the refinery.
The attack comes amid heavy fighting now underway in Yemen between the Houthis and Yemeni government forces backed by Saudi Arabia. Those battles are taking place inside Yemen, not in Saudi Arabia itself, so they don’t put the agreement to the same test as the Jizan strike—but they’re certainly inflaming the region.
2+The Houthis aren’t the only front heating up against the Saudis. Shiite militias in Iraq are also in conflict with Riyadh, and in recent weeks a confrontation has already developed between them that included Saudi strikes in Iraq and drone launches toward Saudi Arabia. The Houthis and the Iraqi militias operate in coordination. Under the patronage of Shiite Iran, they’re trying to strike at Sunni Saudi Arabia.
On Friday, the day the trilateral agreement was signed, Reuters reported from a senior Saudi official that Riyadh anticipates the possibility of a combined attack on the kingdom’s territory—by the Houthis from the south and by Shiite militias in Iraq from the north. Ultimately, the militias announced they are “postponing” for now the planned attack.
2+Much will still be said about the agreement signed last Friday between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey and its possible implications for Israel in future confrontations. Now, just two days after its signing, it already faces its first test. What remains to be seen is whether Pakistan and Turkey will indeed stand alongside Saudi Arabia as it confronts Houthi attacks.