Makkah pact moves off paper, tying Türkiye to the Red Sea front

The noise is troop numbers; the signal is the institution

The headline number is 30,000–40,000. According to the Express Tribune, Reuters reported on 2 October that Pakistan had deployed between 30,000 and 40,000 troops to Saudi Arabia, there to guard the land border and intercept drones and missiles. Pakistan's Information Ministry called the report speculative on 6 October, said its sources were unclear and stated that implementation details remain classified. The figure could not be verified. Nor is there any record of Türkiye entering combat in Yemen.

According to Dawn, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said on 5 October that both countries have a presence in the region, but that Turkish and Pakistani forces remain in a supporting role. Saudi troops are doing the fighting. The real story, then, is not troop numbers but how fast the commitment is turning into an institution.

The signal lies in the extraordinary Riyadh meeting of 5 October. According to Dawn, the three countries agreed to put their joint defence commitments into immediate effect and approved arrangements for rapid force deployment to the kingdom. Retired Lieutenant General Nauman Mahmood became the alliance's first secretary-general for a three-year term. The pact was signed on 7 August, and a meeting in Istanbul on 31 August decided to locate the secretariat in Saudi Arabia. The move from signature to an implementation mechanism took 59 days. For the first time, Türkiye has tied a paper commitment to a deployment arrangement with a timetable.

Why now, and which constraint tightened

The constraint here is tightening, not easing: Washington's willingness to protect Riyadh against the Houthis. According to Gulf News on 21 September, a US strike prepared at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's request was called off after targets had been selected and bombs loaded onto aircraft. The reasons cited included the strain the Iran war was placing on military resources and an understanding that the Houthis would avoid conflict with the US. Fourteen days after that decision, Riyadh summoned Ankara and Islamabad to an extraordinary meeting.

A policy brief from the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies published on 4 October names this gap. It argues that the American security umbrella has eroded and sees the Saudi–Pakistan–Türkiye agreement as a first step towards regional self-reliance. For a lasting system, it sets three further conditions: defining the relationship with the US, broadening membership and bringing Iran into the order. The brief contains no figures or capacity data. Its value lies in an institution looking out from Doha stating plainly that the Gulf is seeking a security core outside the US.

The core is not being built from scratch. According to the Express Tribune, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a bilateral strategic mutual defence agreement in September 2025; on 7 August 2026 the Makkah pact made that link trilateral by bringing in Türkiye. The same report notes that Houthi drone attacks in September 2019 temporarily halted more than half of Saudi crude output. Seven years on, what Riyadh wants is to ensure that the vulnerability exposed then no longer rests on a single ally.

The ground front carries the sea route's risk

On the same day as the meeting, Yemen's recognised government launched Operation Dawn of Yemen to retake Sanaa. According to The National, the Saudi-led coalition provided support with 100 combat aircraft and said it had destroyed 324 high-value targets. The government said it had taken the Bab el-Mandeb coast, Dhubab and the port of Mokha 45 km to the north; the Houthis denied this. The same report says fighting since 6 August has caused more than 5,000 casualties, 959 of them fatal.

According to CBS News, the Houthis claimed on 5 October to have struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and Aramco's Rabigh refinery. Saudi officials confirmed the airport attacks but reported only three people lightly injured. The refinery claim was not confirmed. Brent fell below $100 the same day; the market priced the offensive as an effort to clear the Red Sea route.

Maritime data only half support that optimism. According to Windward's 5 October assessment, Bab el-Mandeb transits rose from 31 on 3 October to 42 on 4 October. Lloyd's List Intelligence puts weekly transits at 290 for 21–27 September, up from 264 the week before. But according to gCaptain, multiple explosions were seen near a tanker about 60 nautical miles south of Mokha on 4 October. With Hormuz closed, the alternative route depends on who holds the coast. That coast is now changing hands through a ground offensive.

What is new for Türkiye is an implementation commitment

According to Dawn, Türkiye was represented at the 5 October meeting by its foreign and defence ministers and its chief of the general staff. It has not been disclosed which forces or capabilities Türkiye will deploy. The pact treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on all. A NATO member is thus bound, through a second collective defence link, to a front that the US declined to strike on 21 September. NATO's collective defence clause does not cover the Red Sea; Ankara is now managing two commitments with two different threat definitions at once.

The economic channel of the link is the defence industry. Data cited by the Defence Industry Agency (SSB) on 8 July show Türkiye's defence and aerospace exports over the previous 12 months topped $11 billion, about 56% of which went to NATO countries. TİM data cited by Ekonomi Gazetesi put exports for January–July 2026 at $5.787 billion, up 26.2%. According to AA, ASELSAN signed a 1.0085 billion euro extended-range air defence contract for the domestic market on 1 October. Demand within the pact will most likely target air defence and drones, the same production lines as the domestic programme.

What would refute this reading

Our thesis: the pact keeps institutionalising, and Türkiye stays with a non-combat, low-visibility contribution. We see this as the most likely path, at 55%. The thesis weakens if a combat mission for Turkish units on Yemeni soil is officially announced, or if the secretariat fails to convene a second joint meeting by 31 December.

If the US gives Saudi Arabia a new, explicit security guarantee by the end of 2026, the urgency of the search for a core fades. If daily Bab el-Mandeb transits fall from 42 on 4 October to below 25, Red Sea route risk returns to prices. In that case the ground front would also turn Türkiye's commitment into a visible military burden.