Introduction
After decades of close cooperation, in September 2025, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA), which declared an attack on one of the two signatories to be an attack against both (Cheema and Ali, 2026). This agreement already entailed the deployment of 8,000 Pakistani troops to Saudi Arabia (Shahid, 2026). On the 7th of August 2026, following a trilateral signing with Türkiye, the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement was founded upon this SMDA (Cheema and Ali, 2026). The Mecca signatories saw themselves confronted with their first shared crisis, when the Houthis, which have controlled much of Saudi Arabia’s southerly neighbor Yemen’s territory for over a decade, started an offensive in September and advanced to take control over Yemen’s Red Sea coastline (Leber and Warner, 2026). Doing so the Houthis not only seized control over the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but also combined this temporary strategic victory with striking strategic Saudi infrastructure (Blackburn, 2026).
For the first few weeks after the birth of the Mecca Pact, Islamabad and Ankara stayed cautious about specifying their commitments to the Mutual Defence Agreement regarding the Saudi conflict with the Houthis (Schiavi, 2026). Things changed on 5 October 2026, when the signatories publicly invoked the mutual defense pact, and Pakistan, alongside Türkiye, said it rapidly deploys troops and other capabilities to Saudi Arabia, without parliamentary endorsement (Shahid, 2026). Pakistan’s Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations, Ahmed Chaudhry, did not disclose the number of additional troops and how they will be employed (Watson et al., 2026). Nonetheless, their deployment itself and the way it was executed already carries major implications for Islamabad, domestically as well as externally.
Domestic Implications
It is important to note the Pakistani government’s forgoing to consult parliament before deploying troops to Saudi Arabia (Shahid, 2026). Unlike in 2015, when the government adhered to parliament’s resolution opposing any direct involvement in the Saudi war against the Houthis in Yemen, Islamabad’s October 2026 deployment of additional troops proceeded without parliamentary consent. Analysts interpret this departure as indicative of the military’s increasingly dominant role in foreign-policy decision-making under Field Marshal Asim Munir (Shahid, 2026). For him, leveraging relationships with Gulf states is a strategy to not only increase his international standing, but one that is also supposed to utilise this external recognition to reinforce his position domestically (Waseem and Kureshi, 2026). Still, greater military authority may also bear greater costs in legitimacy in case external commitments produce economic or security setbacks.
There is another domestic concern, yet one with a potential international spillover. If large contingents are to be moved to Saudi Arabia, this could further decimate Islamabad’s capabilities in its anti-terror operations as well as its posture against India (Cheema and Murtiza, 2026). Weakened anti-terror capabilities could further deteriorate relations with Beijing, which has been increasing pressure on Pakistan to increase security for Chinese workers and project sites linked to the China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor (CPEC) (Andreopolous, 2026). The ongoing deployment of an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Pakistani troops, reported by an unnamed Pakistani official, including the 8,000 deployed in September 2025, to Saudi Arabia (Azhari and Bukhari, 2026) could already weaken Islamabad’s domestic anti-terror operations. Adding to that, sustaining a potentially prolonged conventional war in Yemen would require the deployment of ever more contingents. This, in turn, would even further weaken Pakistan’s ability to secure its own unstable regions of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Adding to that, Shia Muslims make up roughly 15 to 20 percent of the Pakistani population (Baloch and Ellis-Petersen, 2020). Violent confrontation between Pakistan’s armed forces and the Zaydi Shia Houthis in Yemen, one of Shia Iran’s closest allies, could lead to turmoil among the Pakistani Shias. The religious group has experienced allegations of being Iranian proxies in the past (Baloch and Ellis-Petersen, 2020). Doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham, Umer Karim, when speaking to Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency, assumed Iran might mobilize its Shia constituencies inside Pakistan. Such a response might take place as soon as Islamabad becomes directly or indirectly involved against the Houthis (Ali, 2026).
Relations with Iran
Still, the religious link between Iran and Pakistan’s Shia Muslims remains not the only reason Islamabad aims not to alienate Tehran. A few months after reciprocal strikes into each other’s territories targeting Baloch militant groups in January 2024, Pakistan and Iran agreed to coordinate counter-terrorism operations. This cooperation, entailing the stationing of liaison officers at the mutual border, is aimed at targeting the separatist groups Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) as well as the terrorist group Jaish al-Adl, which operate in the shared border regions of the two countries (Ahmad, 2024). Since the Pakistani province of Balochistan has become the country’s province with the highest rate of terror attacks (Basit, 2026), Islamabad is therefore unlikely to desire a fall-out with Tehran, so as not to risk the ongoing cooperation. Another major aspect Islamabad will have an eye on is the “peace pipeline”, which is supposed to one day import gas from Iran (Aziz, 2024). Pakistan has not been able to finalise construction on its part of the border. Iran, therefore, once demanded a penalty of up to 18 billion USD, and at one point even threatened to take Pakistan to the International Court of Arbitration (Aziz, 2024). For Islamabad, which is already struggling to repay its large debt to China (Janjua, 2024), these stakes could play a role when it decides on the employment of its troops in Saudi Arabia. Last but certainly not least, Pakistan’s function as a mediator in the US-Iran war has polished Islamabad’s international status, and is a role it certainly does not want to lose (Sayeed, 2026).
So what could now be at stake regarding the relations between the two neighbors given the operationalisation of the Mecca Pact and Pakistan’s deployment of troops and weapons systems to Saudi Arabia? Christoph Bluth, professor at the University of Bradford, states Iran is not as important a strategic ally to Pakistan as Saudi Arabia or China (Ali, 2026). For him, this does not mean Pakistan won’t fear repercussions from its neighbor. Rather, given the ambiguous relationship, tensions would remain manageable if Islamabad limits its troop employment to defensive measures. He views such a defensive role as the most likely future for Pakistan’s troops, since direct operations against the Houthis “would risk a major diplomatic crisis” (Ali, 2026). In case Pakistan opts for an offensive role, the likelihood of such a fall-out seems certain given Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said Tehran hopes the rumor of a Pakistani troop deployment would not be true. This statement came one day before the deployment was announced on 5 October (Greyman-Kennard, 2026). Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir traveled to Tehran on 20 October (Ghania and Hafezi, 2026), where he might have had to offer an acceptable explanation for the deployment in order to maintain relations and anti-terror cooperation. On 26 October, top representatives of the Mecca Pact countries met with Iranian officials in Tehran to negotiate on the US-Iran as well as the Saudi-Houthi war (Mills et al., 2026). Regional sources reported the meeting did not produce a substantive breakthrough on either issue and the Houthis claimed to have struck the Ras Tanura oil refinery in Saudi Arabia one day after the summit (Rezaei et al., 2026). The four countries nonetheless agreed to continue talks about regional security (Mills et al., 2026).
Invoking the Mecca Pact
Experts such as Bluth deem the deployment of Pakistani troops unlikely to be a preparation for a participation in a conventional Saudi-led ground offensive in Yemen (Ali, 2026). Nonetheless, the troops, together with Turkish forces, could operate air-defense capabilities to protect critical infrastructure and strategic targets inside Saudi Arabia (Cheema and Murtiza, 2026). Saudi Arabia’s stockpile of surface-to-air missiles is running low after defending against intense waves of Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks during the US-Iran war (Cheema and Murtiza, 2026). Furthermore, the troops could serve in supporting battlefield intelligence and air-combat support operations (Cheema and Murtiza, 2026). Alexandra Sharp (2026), writer at Foreign Policy, notes even the threat of a joint involvement holds the potential to severely shift the dynamics of the war. Notably, the Mecca allies together have at their disposal almost 1.4 million active soldiers as well as 3,400 aircraft, 6,000 tanks, and over 340 naval assets (Sharp, 2026).
Nonetheless, the official details of Pakistan’s deployment remain undisclosed and the Mecca Pact’s ratification still has to pass the Turkish National Assembly before it can vote on the deployment of troops (Barker, 2026). For strategic reasons, the Mecca alliance refuses to further disclose more than the information that Türkiye and Pakistan are aiding Riyadh with reconnaissance operations (Sharp, 2026). Moreover, one of Saudi Arabia’s primary strategic goals of the war, was already accomplished. A few days after the Mecca Pact was invoked, following a Saudi-backed counteroffensive, the Houthis lost control over key positions around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. These losses included the strategically important Perim Island, thereby reducing the Houthi’s ability to exert direct territorial control over the waterway (Doran et al., 2026). However, fighting along the Red Sea coast continues, with the Houthis retaining control of the strategically important port of Mokha (Rezaei et al., 2026). The Houthis responded to their loss of Perim Island by attacking, besides other Saudi airports, Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport killing 13 people on 10 October (Mills, 2026). In order to prevent further large-scale missile impacts and to improve battlefield capabilities for the Saudi-led Yemeni forces, Pakistani and Turkish troops are likely to play a defensive and supportive role. This supposition is supported by the fact that the 5 October joint statement by the Mecca allies did neither include the authorisation of offensive actions nor did it mention the Houthis specifically (Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Government of Pakistan, 2026).
Conclusions
Experts estimate Pakistan’s long-term role in the Saudi-Houthi war to remain limited to defensive actions including air-defense and support of battlefield intelligence. Yet only time will tell which option Islamabad, together with its Mecca allies, opts for. Regardless of their future employment, the rapid deployment of troops already carries major implications for Pakistan domestically. The refusal to take the matter to parliament highlights Field Marshal Asim Munir’s and his military’s strengthening grip on decision-making processes in the country. Furthermore, large contingents being sent to Saudi Arabia and eventually used against the Houthis could anger an impatient China, which seeks higher security for its infrastructure projects in Pakistan. Furthermore, its domestic Shia population’s reaction as well as their links to Iran should not be disregarded by Pakistan. Islamabad will have to master a balancing act with Tehran, which would regard an intensive Pakistani engagement against the Houthis as a hostile anti-Iranian act (Ali, 2026). Pakistan’s response to the Houthis must balance its Saudi commitments with preserving counter-terrorism cooperation with Iran and its role as a mediator between Tehran and Washington. For the sake of its Iran relations, and because one of Saudi Arabia’s primary offensive goals of taking the Houthis’ control over Perim Island was already accomplished by Yemeni forces on 9 October, the Pakistani troops’ employment in Saudi Arabia is likely to center around defensive measures.
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