The Middle East is going through one of its most dangerous weeks in years. On Tuesday, Saudi air defences shot down a Houthi drone before it could enter the restricted airspace above Makkah. It was only the second time in the group’s history that it has tried to strike the holiest city in Islam, the first being a missile attempt back in 2017. The Houthis deny it, calling the claim a lie and insisting their real targets were Saudi oil and military sites far from the holy places. But intent hardly matters when a drone is heading toward Makkah. Saudi Arabia called it a red line, and it is hard to disagree. An attack, real or attempted, on a city that belongs to more than a billion Muslims is not a local dispute. It is a provocation that touches the whole Muslim world, including Pakistan.
This did not happen in isolation. The Houthis have spent the past weeks tightening their grip on Yemen’s Red Sea coast. They have taken the port of Mocha and Perim Island, both sitting right on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the most important shipping chokepoints on earth. Saudi Arabia has responded by shutting down its main East-West oil pipeline and suspending loadings at Yanbu, which tells you how seriously Riyadh is taking the threat to its economy. With the Strait of Hormuz already strained by the wider Iran conflict, a second bottleneck closing at Bab al-Mandeb would hit global energy markets hard.
Interestingly, even as the fighting escalates, Washington has kept a quiet back channel open. Reports out of Oman confirm that American officials met Houthi representatives at the US embassy in Muscat over the weekend. The Houthis reportedly promised not to touch American or Israeli vessels, though they made clear that Saudi-flagged ships remain fair game. It is a reminder that in this region, war and diplomacy often run on parallel tracks, and today’s enemy is tomorrow’s negotiating partner.
For Pakistan, this moment demands clarity, not silence. That clarity came this week when the Director General of ISPR, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, sat down with Al Arabiya English to explain the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement signed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye. He was careful to frame it as defensive, built for collective deterrence rather than confrontation. He made a point of saying it has no regional aspirations and is not aimed at any country or alliance. He clarified something equally important, “the operational details of the pact and its commitments remain classified.”
That balance, firm commitment paired with strategic silence, is exactly what Pakistan needs to project right now. Pakistan cannot ignore an assault, even an attempted one, on Makkah. Its historic and spiritual ties to Saudi Arabia leave no room for ambiguity there. But it also cannot afford to be dragged into a shooting war in Yemen or the wider Gulf. The Makkah pact gives Islamabad exactly that space: a credible deterrent that reassures Riyadh without committing Pakistani forces to every skirmish in the region.
The bigger picture is unsettling. Between drones near Makkah, a strait under siege, and secret talks in Oman, the Middle East is being redrawn in real time. Pakistan’s task is to stay close enough to its allies to matter, and far enough from the fighting to stay safe.
Read more:https://digdebate.com/the-makkah-pact-and-the-rise-of-middle-power-security/
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