Pakistan Comes to Saudi Arabia’s Aid, While Turkey Plays for Time

Republicans in the United States are not the only ones suffering from the war in Iran, nor are people around the world or countries still facing the actions of Iranian proxies. Indeed, the conflict could cost Donald Trump’s party a significant number of Senate seats, even under the most favorable projections. The world, meanwhile, is feeling the effects of inflation fueled by rising energy prices. In Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq, the mullahs’ hydra has lost several of its heads, but it still retains its capacity to wreak havoc.

Today, however, Saudi Arabia finds itself on the front line of the conflict launched by the United States and Israel last February. Yemen’s Houthi rebels continue to harass its borders, strike its critical infrastructure and, above all, hamper its oil exports—the lifeblood of its economic power.

Until now, however, Riyadh had been unable to mobilize its new allies, Turkey and Pakistan, with which the Kingdom signed the “Mecca Pact” last month, conceived as a collective defense alliance among the three countries.

In a dramatic turn of events on Friday, Islamabad announced through its army spokesman that Pakistan would defend its Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, “to the very end.” Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said his country would support the Kingdom “both diplomatically and physically.” “We will go all the way to ensure the security of the two holy sanctuaries and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he said.

As a reminder, Houthi forces reported new Saudi airstrikes this week, while Riyadh accused the group of launching a “cowardly” attack targeting Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, sparking a wave of outrage across the Muslim world.

“NATO Was Not Built in a Day”

This is a significant development that can be credited to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Turkey, however, remains more cautious for the time being. “We have received no official request from Saudi Arabia” for military assistance, a Turkish diplomatic source in Ankara told AFP.

“I think everyone in this region has enough experience to know that going somewhere and bombing people and tanker trucks does not necessarily produce results,” the source added.

“Even during the war in Gaza, we saw that a state, despite using every possible means of violence, was unable to defeat a collection of civilians and armed groups.”

Asked about the role the Mecca agreement could play in such crises in the future, the same source noted that “NATO was not built in a day” and that the armed forces of the three countries still needed to learn how to coordinate their military operations.

“This is not simply a matter of Saudi Arabia and its allies sending a few fighter jets to Yemen,” the source argued. “Questions about the future of the Mecca alliance actually have nothing to do with the future of Yemen or the Houthis.”

Iranian Civilians Caught in the Crossfire

In Iran, UN investigators have sounded the alarm, saying that the civilian population “is caught between serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by its own government, and the deadly conflict pitting the country against the United States and Israel.”

In its latest report, due to be presented to the Human Rights Council on Monday, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran says that Tehran’s response to last winter’s protests “marks a significant escalation compared with the past.”

Investigators note a worsening situation “in terms of both the scale of the violence and killings and the efforts made to sever ties between communities and with the outside world, the use of repressive laws, and the increasing use of the death penalty as a tool of intimidation and control.”

The protest movement, which initially began in late December in response to the rising cost of living, quickly grew into widespread anti-government demonstrations, peaking on January 8 and 9.

NGOs report that thousands of people were killed in the crackdown, while the authorities have announced a death toll of more than 3,000, blaming the violence on “terrorist acts orchestrated by the United States and Israel.”

The mission accuses the security forces of having “carried out killings on a staggering scale across all 31 provinces.”

It also stresses that “tens of thousands of people were deprived of their liberty through large-scale arbitrary arrests and detentions,” in some cases involving “torture” and solitary confinement.

The authorities had also suspended access to the international internet during the protests and again at the start of the war, with the shutdown lasting several months.

Since the conflict began, the government has also “stepped up its use of the death penalty against protesters,” the investigators say, asserting that between March and August 2026, at least 29 men were executed “following summary trials” in connection with the demonstrations.

“More than 70 people, including five women and three boys, remain at imminent risk of execution,” they add.

The report concludes that many of these violations constitute “crimes against humanity, including murder, imprisonment, torture, and other inhumane acts.”

The mission also condemns US strikes carried out on February 28, the first day of the war.

According to the mission, there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the United States committed “war crimes” in attacks such as those on a primary school in Minab, which killed more than 150 people, including around 120 children, as well as on a “clearly identifiable” sports complex and residential area in Lamerd, where 22 civilians were killed.