The Mecca pact

Key Developments

• Yemeni forces said a large number of missiles and drones struck Saudi military concentrations, warehouses, vehicles and equipment at the Sahn al-Jinn camp in Marib.
• The attack followed another major operation against Saudi-backed forces, which reportedly killed 58 people.
• Sanaa reiterated that Saudi military movements inside Yemen would be directly targeted under its “siege for siege” and “escalation for escalation” equations.

Yemeni forces launched a major missile and drone attack on Saudi military concentrations in Marib on Friday, as Sanaa simultaneously warned that countries joining or providing cover for Riyadh’s renewed campaign against Yemen would be treated as participants in the aggression.

The warnings acquire particular significance following the signing of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan, a new trilateral security arrangement under which an attack on one of the three countries would be treated as an attack on all.

Ansarallah officials directly addressed the implications of the new alliance, warning Türkiye and Pakistan against allowing the agreement to draw them into Saudi Arabia’s confrontation with Yemen.

Saudi Forces Targeted

Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced that Saudi military concentrations at the Sahn al-Jinn camp in Marib had been targeted following close surveillance of their movements.

“These concentrations were struck, along with their warehouses, vehicles, and military equipment,” Saree said, adding that the operation involved a large number of missiles and drones.

He described the strikes as “top-tier and precise.”

According to the statement, Saudi Arabia has continued concentrating forces and preparing them for a new military confrontation inside Yemen.

Sanaa said it would therefore continue targeting Saudi military movements wherever they appear, reiterating the equations of “escalation for escalation” and “siege for siege.”

“We will not allow hostile plans against our country to go unanswered,” the statement said, warning that any new aggression would face “an immediate and forceful response.”

Yemeni forces also called on Yemenis serving in Saudi-backed formations to leave their positions before further strikes take place.

Continue reading at: palestinechronicle.com

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Where’s the cavalry? (photo: Al Jazeera/CC BY-SA 2.0/Wikimedia Commons)

It takes a certain audacity to sign a mutual-defense treaty on a morning when one of the signatories is already under fire. As Mohammed bin Salman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Shehbaz Sharif put their names to the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on Friday, Saudi commanders were bracing for what Riyadh’s own officials had called imminent, coordinated assaults from Yemen and Iraq, and the kingdom’s air defenses were earning their keep. The pact declares that an armed attack on any of the three shall be treated as an attack on all. By that logic, Pakistani and Turkish jets should have been scrambling sometime before lunch. They were not.

The clause is written to echo NATO’s Article 5, and it sounds the part. But Saudi Arabia is not girding against a hypothetical. It has been under attack since February 28, when the U.S. and Israel opened their war on Iran, and Tehran answered by raining missiles and drones across the Gulf. Iranian ordnance has targeted Prince Sultan Air Base and the Ras Tanura oil complex. Houthi missiles have struck Aramco facilities at Jizan and Yanbu; last week they claimed a Saudi tanker in the Gulf of Aden; Iranian-aligned militias have sent drones from Iraq. If the “an attack on one” clause was designed to summon the cavalry, the cavalry would already be in full gallop.

But there is less to this pact than meets the eye. The joint statement pinned no party to any specific obligation. A Turkish official was quick to call the agreement purely defensive, “not directed against any specific actor,” open to newcomers — and to stress that it overrides none of the parties’ existing arrangements. Deterrence does not usually come festooned with this many asterisks.

In any case, Pakistan is an improbable enforcer of an anti-Iran alliance. It shares a 900-kilometer border with Iran and is home to a large, restive Shia population; only weeks ago it brokered the U.S.-Iran ceasefire in Islamabad. Asim Munir did not fly to Mecca to volunteer his army for a confrontation with Tehran and its catspaws.

Turkey is a NATO member busy hedging on every front — courting the Gulf’s money and the BRICS’ attention while keeping Incirlik open and Iranian gas flowing. Ankara already keeps troops on the peninsula: a garrison outside Doha, at the Tariq bin Ziyad base, since 2016 — an installation Saudi Arabia itself once demanded be shut down. When Iranian missiles fell on Qatar this spring, those Turkish troops stayed in their barracks. Erdogan will trade a photograph in the holy city for goodwill in Riyadh. He will not trade F-16s for a war over the Bab el-Mandeb.

Continue reading at: rsn.org

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