Yemen is spiraling back toward full-scale war after its Saudi-backed government launched a major offensive on Sunday to retake territory captured by the Iran-backed group Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis. President Rashad al-Alimi said the armed forces would seek to retake all Houthi-controlled territory, which is home to about 70% of Yemen’s population, […]
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By Kamran Yeganegi | The Cradle | October 3, 2026
Saudi oil tankers are loading again at Yanbu, less than three weeks after drone strikes shut down the East–West Pipeline that supplies the Red Sea port. On 24 September, crude was reported to be flowing west again, although no ship had yet loaded a cargo.
By 29 September, trade sources and shipping data showed that loadings had resumed. The interruption and recovery have offered a costly demonstration of what an oil route around the Strait of Hormuz can, and cannot, do.
Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas sit at three very different points on that spectrum.
Yanbu has a 1,200-kilometer pipeline in operation and an established export terminal. Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though current Iraqi flows are measured in hundreds of thousands–not millions–of barrels a day. Baniyas could eventually give Iraq a major Mediterranean outlet, but for now it remains a project that depends on new infrastructure and financing, political agreements, and protection across two fragile states.
The comparison begins with the oil that reaches ships during a crisis. Pipeline capacity matters only as much as the pumps, terminals, and security along the route allow.
Yanbu’s exposed lifeline
Saudi Arabia’s 1,200-kilometer East–West Pipeline has a nominal capacity of 7 million barrels per day (bpd). Before the September strikes, reported flows through the system were already below that capacity. Three pumping stations were damaged, and the shutdown halted crude loadings at Yanbu. Riyadh blamed Iraqi resistance factions; the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied responsibility for the strike. Baghdad condemned the strike and opened an investigation.
Restarting the line on 22 September did not immediately restore exports. Crude had to reach Yanbu and replenish stocks before tankers could load. Two vessels scheduled for 23 September left without cargo, according to shipping data cited by Reuters. Loadings resumed days later, after a strike on pumping stations hundreds of kilometers inland had kept the port idle.
Yanbu was moving between 2 million and 2.65 million bpd when tankers returned. Traders expected flows to rise to 3 million to 4 million bpd, but a return to the pre-attack level of roughly 5.5 million bpd could take another month.
The voyage has become more expensive, too. Quoted war-risk premiums for Saudi-linked tankers calling at Yanbu have risen to around 3 percent of vessel value, up from below 1 percent in early July. For a $100 million tanker carrying two million barrels, a 3 percent premium adds roughly $1.50 to the cost of each barrel, before fuel or freight. Yanbu may bypass Hormuz, but insurers are charging heavily for the detour.
Yanbu still leaves Asia-bound cargoes exposed to the southern Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. Attacks and warnings by Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned army have made passage through those waters more costly and uncertain. Heidmar Maritime Holdings chief executive Pankaj Khanna has highlighted another problem for shipowners: the Red Sea lacks the US naval protection sometimes available around Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia has escaped one strait only to send its oil toward another. Cargoes bound for Europe can head north through the Red Sea, but Asian customers require the southern passage. That split limits how freely Riyadh can reroute shipments when risks around Bab al-Mandab rise.
Ceyhan’s southern supply problem
Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though its northern supply remains small compared with the volumes exported through the Gulf. Flows stood at roughly 200,000 bpd in mid-September, down from about 250,000 bpd before the war. Baghdad’s challenge is getting oil from its vast southern fields into that northern export system.
Iraq has begun moving southern oil north by road. A September trial sent 209 tanker trucks carrying about 38,000 barrels to Kirkuk over two days. Basra Oil Company later said around 250,000 bpd was being transported north for onward export through Ceyhan.
Truck convoys are useful during a crisis, but they cannot replace a high-capacity pipeline. The first trial averaged about 182 barrels per truck. Moving 250,000 barrels at that rate would require roughly 1,370 loaded truck trips, with vehicles returning south for the next run. Road conditions and loading points impose additional constraints. Expanding Ceyhan therefore depends less on the Turkish terminal than on a reliable south-to-north connection within Iraq.
Energy analyst Richard Bronze of Energy Aspects has warned against treating bypass infrastructure as a substitute for Hormuz altogether. “The idea that the strait will stop mattering or become worthless is pure rhetoric,” he told Arab News. For Iraq, the road to Ceyhan provides an outlet. It cannot yet carry southern crude at a scale that would loosen Baghdad’s reliance on the Gulf.
Baniyas across the war map
Baniyas is the most ambitious option because it could reshape Iraq’s export map. Iraq has approved preliminary studies comparing routes including Basra–Haditha–Kirkuk–Ceyhan and Basra–Haditha–Baniyas, with a consortium that includes Chevron, TI Capital, and Qatar’s UCC. Chatham House estimates the wider Iraq–Syria network at around $15 billion, with a proposed initial capacity of roughly 2 million bpd and construction potentially taking about four years.
Syrian officials have given a somewhat shorter timeframe. Syrian Petroleum Company chief Youssef Qablawi said in August that the Haditha–Baniyas project could take around 30 months to three years after final agreements and engineering work. Even the shorter timetable places Baniyas beyond the present shipping crisis, assuming agreements and funding are secured.
The route’s security problem is also more complex than a line drawn on a map. A pipeline from Haditha toward Syria would traverse western Iraq, including areas where ISIS cells remain a concern, before entering eastern Syria, where state authority remains uneven and armed groups continue to operate.
Chatham House noted in September that armed actors, including ISIS, have attacked oil wells and tanker trucks in eastern Syria, while Iraq’s fragmented security system leaves multiple actors capable of obstructing or extracting rents from infrastructure.
Israel’s strikes and military presence in Syria would loom over any pipeline to Baniyas. There is no evidence that Israel plans to attack the project, but a route through Syrian territory would depend on security guarantees Damascus cannot yet provide.
Baniyas itself is more functional than the word “reconstruction” sometimes suggests. Iraqi-origin fuel oil has already been trucked through Syria and handled at the terminal, demonstrating that a commercial logistics chain can operate.
The existing trade gives the project a foothold, but handling trucked fuel oil is far removed from loading 1–2 million bpd of pipeline crude. Storage, pumping systems, berths and terminal reliability would have to be scaled accordingly.
The old Kirkuk–Baniyas line was badly damaged, and the planned network may take a different route. Existing truck traffic therefore offers little indication of the cost or the construction work required to handle sustained crude flows.
Sanctions are another constraint, though less severe than under Bashar al-Assad. The EU lifted its broad economic sanctions on Syria in 2025 while retaining security-based and targeted measures, and the US rescinded Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in August 2026. That lowers, but does not eliminate, banking, insurance, due-diligence and counterparty risk for a multi-billion-dollar project.
Iran’s leverage runs through Iraq
The geopolitical logic behind Iraq’s western routes is often framed as a means to reduce Iranian leverage over Hormuz. Iran’s influence in Iraq also extends through energy trade, political networks, and armed factions embedded in Iraq’s fragmented security order.
At the same time, Tehran does not treat Iraq exactly as it treats other Gulf states. Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a political commentator on Iranian television, told Al Jazeera in August that Iran viewed Iraq as a “friendly state” and had allowed some Iraqi oil tankers to pass Hormuz.
He said Baghdad had “always stood up to the United States.” His view is one Iranian reading of Baghdad’s position. An Iraqi move toward Gulf- and US-backed western export corridors would also alter the economic leverage surrounding it.
An expansion through Baniyas or Ceyhan would give Baghdad more room to negotiate export terms without severing its ties to Iran. Gulf investment would bring new transit partners and sources of capital, though it would not automatically shift Iraq’s political alignment.
The security question cuts both ways. Iran-aligned resistance factions could be a source of vulnerability if they viewed a corridor as threatening their strategic interests. ISIS remnants and local power brokers could also obstruct it, while transit-state disputes might halt flows without an attack. Yanbu’s damaged pumps are a warning about the vulnerability of a land corridor.
Iraq’s other proposed exits face obstacles of their own. Reviving the dormant Iraq Pipeline through Saudi Arabia (IPSA) would require Riyadh’s agreement and extensive repairs. The Basra–Aqaba route would have to be built across western Iraq and Jordan.
Egypt’s SUMED pipeline is already operating, but Baghdad has no direct way to feed Iraqi crude into it. For now, the southern Gulf terminals remain Iraq’s only outlet capable of handling exports at scale.
What reaches the tanker?
As of early October, Yanbu can move the largest potential volume because the pipeline and port already exist, but its 7 million bpd nameplate figure overstates the immediately exportable capacity, while Red Sea shipping costs and the Bab al-Mandab remain concerns.
Ceyhan can now load Iraqi crude, but expansion depends on resolving Iraq’s internal north–south logistics. Baniyas offers the largest geopolitical transformation, but it remains years, billions of dollars, and security agreements away from moving crude at scale.
Hormuz remains central to the region’s oil trade even as states invest in alternatives. Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas each shift some exposure from the strait to pumping stations, desert corridors, insurers or transit governments. Their value will be measured by the barrels reaching ships when the Gulf route is under threat, not by the capacity listed in a project plan.
By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | October 2, 2026
Scrambling to halt the ongoing offensive of Yemen’s Armed Forces, Israel and Saudi Arabia have strengthened ties through a joint covert campaign aimed at salvaging what remains of their supremacy in the Red Sea region. Tel Aviv and Riyadh’s losses of key military strongholds in Yemen’s Western coast, has ushered in a new era of soft-normalisation.
Saudi Arabia has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Yemen, resulting in thousands of casualties since its renewed bombing campaign began this July. It now heavily relies on Israeli targeting intelligence backing in order to conduct dozens of strikes across Yemeni territory on a daily basis, including attacks on civilian market places and residential buildings.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials heaped praise on Riyadh this Wednesday for facilitating the first ever commercial flight between Israel and Saudi, following the Kingdom’s intervention to aid Israeli passengers on-board a Flydubai plane that was forced to undergo an emergency landing.
In contrast, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) initiated the renewal of the Saudi-Yemen war, by bombing the runway of Sana’a International Airport in order to prevent an Iranian civilian jetliner from landing inside the country. This measure was taken to enforce a long-standing aerial blockade on Yemen, while Israeli aircraft freely use Saudi airspace.
Riyadh’s pivot to the Israeli orbit entails a covertly coordinated campaign centered around Yemen, bearing regional consequences – from joint intelligence operations, target bank sharing, direct meetings between officials and a calibrated propaganda campaign.
In early September, Israel’s national broadcaster Kan News reported that Tel Aviv had begun supplying intelligence to aid Saudi Arabia in building up a target bank to strike inside of Yemen. Neither side has any formal diplomatic ties and yet Israel is already aiding Saudi Arabia in the military sphere — a development that would usually be a major regional scandal, yet the primarily Gulf State funded Arabic-language media has all but ignored it.
Come mid-September, only days after the Yemeni Armed Forces had liberated the West Coast of their country from Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) militias, Axios News revealed that US Central Command had organised a private Arab-Israeli military retreat in Germany. At the private retreat, both Israeli and Saudi military officials were able to directly discuss issues concerning Iran and Yemen’s Ansarallah-led government.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently visited Cairo, formally meeting Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to discuss issues of trade and foreign affairs. On the sidelines of this trip, CENCTOM officials repeatedly presented a proposal to form a regional command structure and coordination mechanism, that would include Israel, in order to properly confront the Ansarallah-led forces in Yemen.
Even more damning is that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Abu Dhabi on September 27, he didn’t only attend a meeting with Emirati-ruler Mohamed bin Zayed – according to Israeli Channel 14 News, Netanyahu also secretly met with a Saudi delegate.
While analysts argued over whether the recently signed ‘Mecca Pact’ – between Riyadh, Islamabad and Ankara – was signalling the beginning of ‘Sunni Muslim NATO’, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has instead drifted towards a covert strategic alliance with Israel instead. Collusion between the two leaderships – which between them rule over all three of the Islamic Holy Sites – has reached historic heights.
Targeting Civilians And Sectarian Propaganda
A notable outcome of Saudi Arabia’s collaboration with Israel, is a marked uptick in the number of reported civilian massacres that have been taking place. The corporate media’s reporting on such attacks have drawn enormous parallels to the way similar strikes were covered in the Gaza Strip.
Take for example a recent strike carried out by Saudi fighter jets in the Taiz governorate, which killed at least seven civilians in a marketplace and destroyed a food storage site. When Reuters reported on the story, they ran with the following headline: “Seven people killed in strike on market in Yemen, Houthi-run health ministry says”
Just as the corporate media labelled Gaza’s Ministry of Health as “Hamas-run”, it uses “Houthi-run” in Yemen as a rhetorical tactic to detract from the veracity of the claim being made. In Gaza, Hamas is indeed the political Party that heads the local government of the territory, technically making this linguistic trick somewhat accurate, despite it being clear cut propaganda. However, in the case of Yemen it isn’t even vaguely accurate, as the political Party that controls the government is called Ansarallah, “the Houthis” are a family from northern Yemen.
Saudi Airstrikes also targeted other civilian locations such as residential buildings in the Mokha Port area, recently taken over by the Ansarallah-led government’s forces, killing at least 6. While US Central Command has been cited as arguing that Tel Aviv’s targeting data provided to Riyadh is essential, there has been no evidence that the intelligence provided has led to any material change on the battlefield.
It is not currently possible to verify whether the civilian infrastructure struck by Saudi Arabia’s airforce were targets located by Israeli intelligence gathering efforts or not, it is clear that Israel’s own strikes on Yemen have killed overwhelmingly civilians.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia do indeed have shared interests in Yemen. Both seek the overthrow of the nation’s Sana’a based government. The recent capture of the Bab al-Mandab coastline by the Yemeni Armed Forces threatens both Tel Aviv and Riyadh, as they are the only two nations which Sana’a has reason to impose a blockade on.
The Yemeni imposed blockade on Israel, beginning in late 2023, completely bankrupted the southern Israeli Port of Eilat. This measure was taken in support of Gaza and the blockade ended with the implementation of the October 8, 2025 ceasefire. In the case of Saudi Arabia, a blockade has been imposed upon them in the Red Sea as a retaliatory measure against the long-standing Saudi blockade of Yemen.
This has led to a joint Saudi-Israeli propaganda campaign, seeking to depict the Yemeni control over their own territory as a threat to international maritime navigation and trade, something that Yemen’s officials have explicitly denied
A prominent propaganda theme is the weaponisation of religious authorities and the deliberate spread of sectarianism. Take prominent Saudi Islamic Scholar Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Rayez, a man that previously forbade resistance against Israel and condemned the Palestinian armed struggle, urged what he called “Sunni Muslims” to fight the “cursers of the companions [of the Prophet Mohammed]” to “race to the great field of martyrdom” against the Yemeni Armed Forces. Al-Rayez promotes factually inaccurate sectarianism, deeming the Sana’a based government as an evil Shia opposition to a righteous Saudi-backed Sunni force.
Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan Al-Fawzan also made a rare public statement on the war against Yemen, framing the issue as a religious obligation for Muslims to fight against the Yemeni Armed Forces. Additionally a top Saudi-linked Pakistani cleric, infamous for praising Osama bin Laden as “a Muslim warrior”, deemed Ansarallah to be “terrorists” and claimed that they are not even Muslims.
Across Gulf State owned Arabic-language media there has been a virulently anti-Ansarallah coverage of the war, with various pundits attempting to claim that the Zaydi Muslim sect in Yemen are conspiring with Iran to usher in a Shia Muslim tyranny across West Asia; aimed oppressing the Sunni majority.
While Saudi Arabia conspires alongside Israel to strike targets across Yemen and its officials meet with their Israeli counterparts, a concerted propaganda effort attempts to convince the region’s public that Riyadh is the victim; weaponising sectarianism as a means of distracting from its continued pivot towards the Israeli sphere of influence.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – October 3, 2026
RT | October 2, 2026
Yemen’s Houthis have denied targeting a power station in the city of Medina. A Saudi-led coalition earlier accused the militant group of targeting the facility supplying power to the Prophet’s Mosque – one of the holiest sites in the Muslim world.
A senior Houthi official branded the accusation a “lie” aimed at tarnishing the group’s image and reinforcing similar claims made by the coalition in the past.
On Thursday, the Saudi coalition’s spokesman, Major General Turki al-Maliki, accused the Yemeni militants of striking the Taibah electricity distribution station in Medina earlier this week in what he called a “cowardly terrorist act” and a part of an alleged broader campaign by the Houthis to “target the Two Holy Mosques.”
In mid-September, Saudi Arabia accused the Houthis of launching a drone towards the holy city of Mecca. The unmanned aerial vehicle was intercepted and destroyed, it added. The Yemeni movement’s leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, dismissed that claim as a “heinous lie” in a televised address at the time, claiming Riyadh was “weaponizing lies” to advance its own agenda.
The developments have sparked concerns in Türkiye and Pakistan, which signed a joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia in August. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called any “threat to the sanctity” of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina a “red line that must never be crossed.”
Ankara denounced this week’s alleged Medina attack. “Any attack targeting the sanctity, peace, and security of the Two Holy Mosques is an unacceptable affront directed at the shared sensitivities of the entire Islamic world,” the Turkish government spokesman, Burhanettin Duran, said on X on Friday. He vowed that Türkiye “will continue to stand by Saudi Arabia.”
The developments come amid the continued escalation between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition. Riyadh has backed Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthis since intervening in the country’s civil war in 2015.
Large-scale fighting largely subsided after a UN-brokered truce in 2022, but the conflict erupted again this summer after an airport in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital of Sanaa was bombed to prevent a returning Houthi delegation that had flown to Iran from landing.
Greece will extend the presence of its air defense battery of Patriot missiles in Saudi Arabia for at least another month, top defense and foreign policy officials agreed on Thursday. In a session chaired by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Government Council on National Security and Foreign Affairs (KYSEA) took into consideration the increased tension […]
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The U.S. State Department today approved the possible sale of 48 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The proposed deal, worth an estimated total cost of $24.3 billion, was announced as the Kingdom is in the midst of a fierce fight against the Houthi rebels of Yemen. It marks a major policy shift, with Washington previously being unwilling to export the advanced stealth fighters to Arab states and will likely serve as a reminder at a very challenging time for the Saudis of the unique security capabilities that only the U.S. can provide them.
In addition to the jets, which will be conventional takeoff and landing variants, Saudi Arabia has requested 49 Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines, support and other items.
Despite concerns from Israel that providing Saudi Arabia with the advanced fighters will tip the balance of power in the region, the proposed sale of this equipment and support “will not alter the military balance in the region,” the State Department noted.
The United States has a requirement to maintain Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge, which essentially guarantees that Israel will be prioritized for advanced U.S. weapons ahead of Arab states in the region. Among these advanced weapons, the stealthy F-35 is highly prominent.
You can read our past feature about the wide-ranging impacts of an F-35 sale to Saudi Arabia here.
“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a major non-NATO ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf region,” the State Department wrote. “The proposed sale will improve Saudi Arabia’s capability to deter current and future threats by strengthening its homeland defense, and improving interoperability with U.S. forces, and other regional and NATO forces. The proposed sale will also augment Saudi Arabia’s operational aircraft and enhance its air-to-air, and air-to-ground self-defense capability. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment and services into its armed forces.”
In November, “President Trump approved a major defense sale package, including future F-35 deliveries, which strengthens the U.S. defense industrial base and ensures Saudi Arabia continues to buy American,” according to the White House.
Trump has pushed for closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia and wants the Kingdom to join the Abraham Accords initiative. This is a set of agreements that establish normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and different Arab states. Doing so would be a major breakthrough, following the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and others.
A Saudi F-35 deal was also discussed under the Biden administration, as part of a broader deal that sought to normalize the Kingdom’s relations with Israel.
This is a developing story.
Contact the author: howard@twz.com
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“What stands in the way becomes the way,” Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations. Nearly two millennia later, the idea captures Pakistan’s strategic dilemma with remarkable precision. Islamabad must convince Saudi Arabia that its defence commitment carries real weight without being drawn into another Middle Eastern war or rupturing its relationship with Tehran. That obstacle may itself have become Pakistan’s most useful instrument: strategic ambiguity, writes Dimitra Staikou.
On 10 September 2026, following Houthi attacks against Saudi targets, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Sajjad Haider Khan said there was no discussion of an immediate military response under the new defence agreement. Yet only a day earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had warned that continued aggression against Saudi Arabia could make the pact operational.
The contradiction may be more calculated than accidental. On 13 September, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed Pakistan’s complete solidarity with Mohammed bin Salman. Two days later, fresh missile and drone attacks against Saudi targets brought the question of collective defence closer to reality. Pakistan is trying to reassure Riyadh that it will not stand alone while avoiding any clear definition of when political solidarity becomes military involvement. At the same time, Islamabad is keeping channels with Tehran open and leaving Saudi Arabia’s adversaries uncertain about where Pakistan’s real red line lies. But September’s events suggest that the space for such ambiguity is narrowing. The central question is no longer whether Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are security partners, but how far Islamabad is actually prepared to go when deterrence is tested.
That question has become more urgent because the relationship has changed institutionally. On 7 August 2026, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, declaring that an armed attack against any one of the three would be regarded as an attack against all. On 31 August, their foreign and defence ministers and military chiefs met in Istanbul to begin institutionalising the arrangement, agreeing to establish a permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia and deepen joint defence-industry cooperation, technology development and production. This is therefore more than another declaration of political solidarity. The Makkah Alliance is beginning to acquire the machinery designed to make collective deterrence credible.
The military relationship between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia itself stretches back decades. Pakistani officers have trained Saudi forces, Pakistani troops have periodically been deployed in the Kingdom, and Riyadh has reciprocated with economic and political support. Yet the most important episode for understanding the limits of this relationship came in 2015. When Saudi Arabia assembled its coalition for the intervention in Yemen, Riyadh sought Pakistani military support. On 10 April, Pakistan’s parliament unanimously backed neutrality, effectively rejecting direct participation while pledging to defend Saudi Arabia if its territorial integrity were threatened. The distinction was crucial: Islamabad was prepared to defend the Kingdom, but not automatically to participate in its wars. In 2026, that very red line is being tested.
The Riyadh-Islamabad rapprochement does not mean that Saudi Arabia is abandoning the United States. It does, however, demonstrate that the Kingdom no longer wants its security to depend exclusively on Washington. The limited US response following the attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities in 2019, followed by Washington’s 2021 decision to end support for offensive operations in Yemen, had already exposed the limits of American protection. That uncertainty resurfaced this September. Mohammed bin Salman sought military assistance from Donald Trump against the Houthis, but the US president declined to authorise direct American strikes, with Washington instead offering intelligence-sharing and targeting support. On 12 September, Trump said Iran was probably responsible for the attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline and described Mohammed bin Salman as a “good friend”. The United States remains an indispensable Saudi partner, but not always a willing combatant. Pakistan gains importance in precisely this space: not as a replacement for America, but as an additional regional pillar of Saudi security.
If the American position explains why Riyadh is seeking more strategic options, China points towards the direction in which the wider security system may be moving. Beijing is one of Islamabad’s most important strategic and military partners, while simultaneously developing an increasingly close relationship with Saudi Arabia. In April 2026, Xi Jinping told Mohammed bin Salman that China wanted to deepen “mutual strategic trust” with the Kingdom. On 2 September, Xi argued that regional states should work towards “a new security architecture for the Middle East” and hold their future in their own hands. His remarks were not about the Makkah Agreement and should not be interpreted as Chinese endorsement of it. They do, however, reflect a broader shift: a Riyadh seeking greater strategic autonomy, an Islamabad deeply connected to Beijing, and a China seeking a greater role in shaping the regional order. The issue is not a secret trilateral alliance, but the potential convergence of Saudi capital, Pakistani military power and Chinese technological and strategic support.
There is also an unavoidable nuclear dimension. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; Saudi Arabia is not a nuclear weapons state. Nothing publicly released about the Makkah Agreement establishes a Pakistani nuclear guarantee to Riyadh, and there is no evidence that Islamabad intends to deploy nuclear weapons on Saudi territory. Yet that absence of clarity is itself strategically significant. Pakistan’s nuclear capability sits behind a collective-defence commitment whose public language does not specify where conventional deterrence ends and strategic deterrence begins. For Iran, Israel, Washington and European capitals, the question is therefore not whether Saudi Arabia has suddenly acquired a Pakistani nuclear umbrella — it has not — but whether potential adversaries may now have to calculate against that possibility in an extreme crisis. Deterrence often depends as much on uncertainty as on declared doctrine.
For Europe, this shift is anything but distant. On 9 September, France expressed full solidarity with Riyadh following the Houthi attacks. In Berlin, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul assured his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan of Germany’s solidarity, while on 11 September the German Foreign Office warned that growing Houthi pressure around Bab al-Mandab could restrict oil and LNG supplies, with consequences for global markets. In Brussels, Kaja Kallas had already put “freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea on the European agenda, asking publicly what more Europe could do. These concerns are tangible: energy security, maritime trade routes and regional stability are becoming intertwined in the same crisis. The attacks of 15 September have made the danger even clearer, with renewed strikes against Saudi targets adding to pressure on energy markets and further threatening the routes connecting the Gulf, the Red Sea and Europe.
There is another reason Europe cannot treat the Makkah Alliance as a distant development: Türkiye. Ankara is simultaneously a party to the new collective-defence architecture and a member of NATO. That does not mean the Makkah Agreement automatically engages NATO obligations, nor that the two systems are inherently incompatible. But it does create questions that European allies should address before, rather than during, a major crisis. What happens if Türkiye is asked to participate in collective action under the Makkah Agreement? How would Ankara manage parallel commitments if escalation involved Iran or another regional actor? And how much strategic consultation should occur within NATO before such a scenario materialises?
Brussels cannot afford to wait for the agreement to be activated for the first time before deciding how to respond. Europe needs deeper dialogue with Riyadh and Islamabad on non-proliferation and missile technologies, stronger protection for navigation in the Red Sea and a clear discussion within NATO about Ankara’s new defence commitments. It does not need to treat the emerging security architecture as hostile. But it does need to understand what happens when that architecture moves from declarations to action.
The real test of the Makkah Alliance will come when Riyadh asks Islamabad to demonstrate what it means for an attack on one to be treated as an attack on all. At that moment, the strategic ambiguity that today gives Pakistan room to manoeuvre may become the problem itself. And the question — whether Pakistan is genuinely prepared to fight for Saudi Arabia — will no longer concern Riyadh and Islamabad alone. The answer could reshape the security balance from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea all the way to Europe.
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