• Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan are moving to operationalize their Mecca Joint Defence Agreement after Houthi missile and drone attacks on Riyadh and Aramco-linked facilities in Yanbu.
  • The attacks threaten Yanbu, a key Red Sea crude-export hub, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint for roughly 12% of global oil trade. Brent crude rose more than 3% to above $108 per barrel before easing.
  • The pact has not been formally triggered, and no collective military response has been announced. France separately deployed defensive assets to protect Yanbu.

Urgent Military Talks

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister met with counterparts from Pakistan and Turkey on September 24 to arrange an urgent meeting of the three countries’ military chiefs under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, according to people familiar with the matter. The move follows renewed Houthi missile and drone attacks, including claimed strikes on Riyadh and Saudi Aramco (2222.SR)-linked facilities at Yanbu.

The agreement, signed on August 7, states that an armed attack on one member is to be treated as an attack on all three. However, the pact has not been formally triggered, and no collective military response has been announced. Turkey has said the pact will build formal political and military mechanisms, including joint exercises and defense-industrial cooperation.

Saudi forces said they intercepted six ballistic missiles aimed toward Taif and Yanbu. The Houthis claimed they also attacked Aramco infrastructure in Yanbu and a “sensitive” target in Riyadh. Saudi authorities had not confirmed damage at the time of reporting.

Energy Risks Mount

The immediate security concern extends beyond Saudi territory. Yanbu is Saudi Arabia’s main Red Sea crude-export hub, with storage and refining capacity, and is linked to eastern oil-producing regions via the East-West Pipeline (Petroline). That pipeline can carry up to 7 million barrels per day, providing Saudi Arabia a route that avoids the Strait of Hormuz.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait normally handles roughly 12% of global oil trade. Houthi control or disruption on Yemen’s Red Sea coast raises shipping, insurance, and diversion costs. Brent crude reportedly rose more than 3% on September 24, briefly exceeding $108 per barrel, before easing to $105.77 the following morning. An analyst at Sparta Commodities said prices could remain above $100 while the wider Iran war persists.

The broader economic implication is a potential “double chokepoint” exposure: Saudi exports face stress in both the Gulf/Hormuz area and the Red Sea/Bab el-Mandeb route. That makes Yanbu’s protection strategically important far beyond Saudi domestic security.

France Deploys Defensive Assets

France separately committed to deploy soldiers, radar, and air-defense systems to protect Yanbu, while emphasizing that the deployment is defensive and not intended to involve French forces in direct combat.

Fighting in Yemen has intensified in parallel, including around terrain overlooking Bab el-Mandeb. AFP-reported source accounts cited at least 150 deaths among Houthi and Yemeni government-aligned forces over a 24-hour period, though battlefield claims remain difficult to independently verify.

Broader Implications

The defense consultations test the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. For Saudi Arabia, the talks help demonstrate that Riyadh has security partners beyond its traditional reliance on the United States and Gulf allies. For Turkey, Ankara can deepen its role in Gulf and Red Sea security while preserving its NATO commitments. For Pakistan, the pact expands Islamabad’s strategic role in the Middle East, though direct involvement against the Houthis could carry domestic, regional, and escalation risks.

Iran denies directing Houthi operations, but the growing Houthi threat and the Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani alignment sharpen the wider regional contest involving Iran-aligned armed groups.

The Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, has fought Yemen’s internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government for more than a decade. Saudi Arabia led a coalition intervention beginning in 2015. A prolonged reduction in cross-border fighting had eased direct attacks on Saudi targets, but the current escalation has revived a pattern familiar from prior phases of the Yemen war.

What is different now is the strategic setting: the current fighting intensified after a years-long truce broke down in July; Houthi operations are now intertwined with the larger regional conflict and maritime insecurity; Saudi export infrastructure is more consequential because it offers an alternative to routes exposed to disruption around Hormuz; and Riyadh now has a newly signed collective-defense framework with Turkey and Pakistan, plus a tangible French protective deployment at Yanbu.

What to Watch

Expect more air-defense activity, emergency warnings, and protection of fixed energy infrastructure. The immediate question is whether the three defense partners limit themselves to consultations, intelligence sharing, training, logistics, and air-defense support—or interpret continued attacks as requiring more visible collective action.

Oil prices and shipping rates are likely to remain highly sensitive to any verified damage at Yanbu, additional interruptions to the East-West Pipeline, or further threats to Bab el-Mandeb. The key uncertainty is escalation control: protecting Yanbu may reduce the risk of a successful strike on Saudi energy infrastructure, but further militarization around Yemen and the Red Sea could also increase the chances of a wider regional confrontation.

A previous version of this article misstated the date of the Saudi foreign minister’s meeting. It was September 24, not September 23.