Tag: saudi arabia

Türkiye Prepares To Deploy Military Personnel To Saudi Arabia Under Defense Pact

Reuters reported that Türkiye is set to deploy military personnel to Saudi Arabia under an agreement to provide joint defense to Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Once the agreement is ratified, the mandate to deploy will be sent to Türkiye’s parliament, Reuters reported.

Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement on August 7 under which armed attacks on any of the three countries would be considered attacks on all three of them. The agreement aims to promote closer defense cooperation, share intelligence and conduct joint training, and a Turkish official described it as purely defensive in nature.

Amid Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabian airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea, officials from the three countries met in Riyadh on October 5 and agreed to put their collective defense commitments into action, including the rapid sending of armed forces to Saudi Arabia in accordance with each of the countries’ national laws.

Türkiye’s parliament was submitted the pact in full on October 20 for ratification, according to sources in the Turkish parliament. It is expected to go to the foreign affairs committee and then to a full parliament vote.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the role Türkiye plans to play would be limited to a defensive one, and that Türkiye will not launch attacks against Yemen from bases in Saudi Arabia. Türkiye’s constitution states that sending troops abroad requires the approval of the Turkish parliament.

Türkiye’s contribution is expected to include air defense systems, electronic warfare systems, technical personnel and intelligence, and possibly a limited number of pilots and special forces. In the past, Türkiye already deployed technical personnel to Saudi Arabia within the scope of previous bilateral agreements.

Pakistan is also a full signatory to the agreement and already has armed forces stationed in Saudi Arabia. Iran’s reaction to the three-way security deal, signed in Mecca, has been strongly worded, with one senior Iranian lawmaker saying a paper agreement would not bring the Saudis security.

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What’s a 100,000 Dead Yemenis When War Is Profitable?

Based on his actions and words, Yemeni life matters little to Mark Carney. He supports monarchist/Zionist/US domination of the region.

Late Saturday evening the prime minister posted, “The Houthi attacks on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and in particular the strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, are abhorrent.

There can be no justification for attacks on civilian infrastructure… Canada condemns these reckless acts of violence in the strongest possible terms.”

Carney was responding to Ansar Allah strikes on Riyadh’s airport that reportedly killed a dozen and injured many more. It’s reasonable to criticize the substantial loss of life. But Carney hasn’t said a word about hundreds of Saudi strikes on Yemen, which have killed far more civilians.

Two days earlier, Antiwar.com’s Dave DeCamp reported, “Saudi airstrikes hit a passenger vehicle in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province on Thursday, killing at least two civilians and wounding six others, as civilian casualties continue to mount in the US-supported bombing campaign.” The Yemeni Health Ministry reported that a pregnant woman also lost her baby and two girls were injured in the attack.

Two days before, 14-year-old Athir al-Amri was killed by shrapnel when the Saudis hit next to her school bus in eastern Sana’a. Two classmates were also wounded, including one gravely.

According to a Drop Site News article quoting a spokesperson for the health ministry, Al-Amri was the 83rd civilian killed in Ansar Allah-controlled areas since the escalation began in September. The worst incident took place on September 7 when 35 civilians, including a child, were reportedly killed by a Saudi strike on a prison in the northern al-Jawf province.

Over the past six weeks, the Saudi-led coalition has reportedly launched 2,000 airstrikes on its southern neighbor. On October 5 the media reported that 100 Saudi fighter jets carried out over 150 strikes across Yemen while on Sunday Ansar Allah said the kingdom “launched 124 airstrikes in the past 24 hours.”

Montreal-based flight simulator company CAE has trained Saudi pilots in numerous locales. It trained them at a facility in Abu Dhabi and a US base in Pensacola, Florida. Saudi pilots have also trained at NATO’s Flying Training in Canada, which was run by CAE and the Canadian Forces in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Millions of dollars in Canadian-made rifles and billions of dollars in Canadian built armored vehicles have been shipped to the monarchy as the Saudis killed tens of thousands of Yemenis between 2015-2022. (The United Nations Development Program put the Yemeni death toll at 377,000 due to direct and indirect consequences of the war as well as the Saudi blockade.)

While it has received far less attention in recent years, arms shipments continue to the kingdom. The largest non-US recipient of Canadian arms, $1.3 billion was sold to the Saudis in 2024 and another $400 million in 2025.

On Friday the Globe and Mail published a guide for capitalists looking to profit from the violence headlined “Bet on These Defense ETFs Amid Escalating Yemen War”. The Report on Business article noted, “The conflict in Yemen has spilled across Saudi Arabia’s borders once again. Houthi rebels recently struck two airports inside the Kingdom, including an attack on the airport serving the Saudi capital that witnesses described as triggering an evacuation.

“Riyadh’s air defenses were tested in real time, underscoring a longstanding challenge for defense planners: the drone and missile threat from Yemen remains persistent, increasingly sophisticated and far from resolved.

“For investors, this is a relevant signal. Escalating attacks of this kind tend to accelerate demand for weapons systems like interceptors, precision-guided munitions, radar, and integrated air and missile defense architectures, designed to stop them.

“Naturally, defense majors that already hold direct weapons agreements with Saudi Arabia stand to see order growth, expanded backlogs, and stronger revenue visibility as the Kingdom is likely to replenish and upgrade its defensive stockpile. Against this backdrop, defense-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which provide exposure to multiple prime contractors, offer a diversified way to capitalize on rising demand without betting on a single name.”

Throughout the 2010s Saudi war on Yemen the Canadian Embassy’s website claimed, “the Saudi government plays an important role in promoting regional peace and stability.” It’s been updated. Now the section on bilateral relations starts off noting, “Canada and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have enjoyed positive relations for over 50 years, grounded in shared interests in achieving economic growth, diversifying their economies, enhancing regional and international security, and establishing the foundations for global peace.”

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Trump: U.S. ‘may’ become involved after Houthi attack on Saudi airport leaves 13 dead, hundreds injured

United States officials condemned the Houthi attack on a Saudi airport in Riyadh that reportedly killed 13 people, including an American, and left hundreds more injured.

On Saturday, the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh was targeted in attack attributed to the terrorist Yemeni militant group, the Houthis, according to Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry.

“The United States strongly condemns the recent attacks on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the terrorist Houthis, including today’s strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh that took numerous innocent lives, including an American citizen,” said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Saturday statement.

The Saudi Arabian General Authority of Civil Aviation announced 12 deaths, which included four Saudis, two Bangladeshi nationals, one American, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian and one Sudanese. Per the authority, 309 others were injured, including some in critical condition.

The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia also said on Sunday that one Indian national succumbed to their injuries, bringing the death toll to 13.

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Iran-Backed Houthis Kill American in Saudi Airport Strike

The Iranian regime’s proxies continue to murder civilians across the Middle East.

At least 12 people died and over 300 suffered injuries after Houthi terrorists struck the airport in Saudi Arabia’s capita, Riyadh. One of the victims was an American. It was the worst mass casualty event in any Gulf Arab state since the start of the ongoing conflict with the Iranian regime this year, with only Israel suffering worse bombardments. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the American casualty.

President Donald Trump also told reporters on Saturday that his administration was now finally considering taking action against the Houthis in light of this new attack. The Houthis have stated their intention of making airports a “theater of operations.”

The strike illustrates the fact that while the Islamic world tends to band together when fighting Westerners, there’s plenty of internecine warfare due to political and geographical disagreements. Whenever Muslims are not killing Christians and Jews, they are killing each other.

Saudi Arabia is a sharia state that persecutes Christians, but it has not been on the side of the Iranian regime in the current conflict, which means it has become a target both for Iran and for Iran’s proxies. Exiled Persian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi certainly blames Tehran for the multiple Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, even on the Muslim “holy” city of Mecca, in recent weeks.

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Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Secret Working Relationship

Saudi Arabia has never signed the Abraham Accords, which means its relationship with Israel can still be discussed as a deal waiting to happen. But long before anyone agrees on what a public deal should contain, Israeli-made spyware has reached a Saudi dissident, Saudi sovereign wealth has backed investments in Israeli companies, and the two countries have been drawn into discussions about intelligence cooperation against Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement.

In a new Double Down News investigation, Lowkey traces a shadow network linking senior Israeli intelligence figures, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli cyber-warfare technology exported to Saudi Arabia with state approval. Jeffrey Epstein appears in that story seeking a place close to the Saudi leadership. In correspondence examined by The New Arab, he offered advice on the planned sale of Saudi oil company Aramco and helped draft a letter addressed to the crown prince. The question becomes more urgent in Yemen, where reports describe talks mediated by US Central Command, or CENTCOM, over Israeli intelligence assistance to Riyadh against Ansar Allah.

Omar Abdulaziz was living in Canada in 2018 and working with journalist Jamal Khashoggi when a message about a package arrived on his phone. The link inside led to Pegasus, spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group. Citizen Lab found that Abdulaziz’s phone had been infected by a Saudi-linked operator. Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi agents later that year inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

Khashoggi was also the subject of conflicting accounts inside Wikistrat, a private intelligence firm founded in Israel whose founder, Joel Zamel, met senior Saudi officials. Before the murder, a Wikistrat executive told a colleague that the company had recruited  Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi for a Saudi-focused project. Afterwards, he said Khashoggi had only been considered, although the firm later told Forensic News that he had been part of its analyst community for some time. One of the Saudi officials Zamel met was Ahmed al-Asiri, the former deputy head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency and a former close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who was later accused of overseeing the operation against Khashoggi.

By the time Jared Kushner left the White House, Saudi Arabia still had not recognised Israel, though Kushner had helped other Arab governments do so through the Abraham Accords. His new firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and went on to buy 15% of an Israeli vehicle and credit business, while also becoming the largest single shareholder in Israeli insurer Phoenix Financial. Research by AFSC Investigate documents Phoenix’s insurance services to West Bank settlement councils and its investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Saudi money could reach those businesses through the fund Kushner controlled, even as recognition remained off the table.

The Saudi-led war had already helped push millions in Yemen towards hunger when seven-year-old Amal Hussain died of malnutrition in October 2018. In November 2025, Sana’a’s Interior Ministry alleged that a joint Saudi, American and Israeli operations room in Riyadh had recruited Yemenis to collect coordinates inside the country. It released video confessions from detainees and described equipment supplied to the alleged network. The Long War Journal reported the allegations, but did not independently establish the claimed command structure. Then, this month, separate reporting described talks through CENTCOM over potential Israeli intelligence assistance to Riyadh against Ansar Allah.

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Corporate Media Don’t Understand the Houthis—and Don’t Want You to, Either

It’s that time of year again: The Houthis are making the news—and so is the Western corporate media narrative that surrounds them.

The Houthis—formally Ansar Allah, “Supporters of God”—are from the Zaydi Shia minority in Yemen, and have governed the most populous sections of the country, including the capital Sanaa, since the start of Yemen’s civil war in 2014.

Like many a “civil” war, the conflict has plenty of outside participants—most notably Saudi Arabia, which led a coalition of Arab states (with the backing of the United States) in an effort to bomb and starve Yemen away from Houthi control.

In 2022, a tenuous truce took hold between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, but the Saudi blockade of the country was never lifted.

This July, the Houthis declared their own naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, in response to the Saudi siege and resumed bombing of Yemen. In a rapid September offensive, the group completed its takeover of Yemen’s Red Sea Coast and the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait, putting Saudi oil shipping operations in a decisive bind. The Houthis have also launched missiles at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi attacks on the country.

The offensive has prompted a slew of media interventions to ostensibly explain to everyone who the Houthis are. The New York Times (9/23/26), for instance, ran the headline “Who Are the Houthis, and What Do They Want?”; the BBC (9/24/26) ran the very same title, minus the comma.

The Washington Post (9/15/26) asked: “Who Are the Houthis, the Iran-Backed Rebels Threatening a Key Maritime Passage?” Its headline characterization revealed what corporate media see as the primary thing anyone needs to know about the Houthis: that they are simply proxies of Iran, the West’s current favorite enemy.

In a typical example, a recent CNN dispatch (9/21/26) identified the Houthis as “Iran-backed” in both the headline and the first sentence, with a reference to “Tehran’s proxies” appearing further down.

For its part, an Associated Press exclusive (9/23/26) on how “Iranian Advisers Helped Houthis Seize Yemen’s Red Sea Coast in Less Than 48 Hours” sounded the alarm that “Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisers were in the field helping direct the battle,” in a show of “how Iran has built the Houthis into a major regional partner able to open a new front in the wider war with the US.”

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At Least 150 Killed In Yemen Within Two Days Amid Indiscriminate Saudi Air Campaign

At least 150 people have been killed in Yemen since Sunday as Saudi warplanes launch indiscriminate strikes across the country and clashes continue between Ansarallah-led forces and Riyadh-backed proxies.

“The death toll from Saudi airstrikes, clashes, and artillery fire in the governorates of Taiz, Al-Jawf, Marib and Saada stands at 118,” AFP reported on 22 September, citing what it said were Ansarallah-linked military sources.

Sources close to the internationally recognized government, supported by Riyadh, say 36 of their fighters have been killed, according to AFP.

Sirens sounded in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday due to more Yemeni strikes launched in response to the kingdom’s aggression against Yemen.

Hours earlier, Saudi strikes killed several people in Yemen.

An early morning strike by the Saudi-led coalition, targeting a residential home in the city of Mokha, in Yemen’s Taiz Governorate, killed six people, including two infants and a woman.

Several others were injured. Overnight, Yemen’s retaliatory military operations triggered sirens across the kingdom.

“From Monday evening until Tuesday morning, Saudi Arabia experienced one of its most difficult nights as a state of alert and anxiety turned into a permanent and pressing condition – from Najran, Asir, Jizan, and Abha to Jeddah, Yanbu, and Al-Ula – amid the escalation of Yemeni deterrence,” Yemeni news outlet Al-Masirah TV reported.

A day earlier, the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) said Saudi Arabia has launched over 900 strikes on Yemen since the latest escalation began several weeks ago.

“The Saudi enemy carried out 157 airstrikes and missile attacks targeting the governorates of Al-Jawf, Taiz, Saada, and Marib, using F-15 and Typhoon warplanes that took off from the Khamis Mushait and Taif air bases, along with missile attacks launched from Najran and Jizan,” the YAF statement read.

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CIA role in 9/11 plot omitted in new revelations of Saudi role

Twenty five years on, the mainstream media’s determination to reinforce the official story of 9/11 appears to be finally cracking. Major news outlets are now reporting on an ongoing civil suit in a New York court against Omar Bayoumi, long-accused of being the Saudi intelligence handler of 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar. Back in April 2023, The Grayzone exposed how Riyadh recruited then managed the two would-be hijackers on behalf of the CIA.

As Max Blumenthal detailed in his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery, the CIA had at least sought to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar. When a 21-page declaration by lead investigator for the Office of Military Commissions Don Canestraro finally appeared in unredacted form in 2023, the darkest suspicions about the two hijackers was confirmed: they had indeed been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation which may have gone awry.

This September, numerous media reported for the first time on apparently incontrovertible evidence implicating Bayoumi in the planning and commission of the 9/11 attacks. Never before seen material, including video tapes featuring Bayoumi paintballing with Al Qaeda recruiter Anwar Awlaki – himself killed in a US drone strike in September 2011 – and walking around Washington DC in 1999 apparently scoping Capitol hill security measures, and a pencil sketch of the supposedly precise “mathematical calculation” of the Pentagon attack with an accompanying crude plane diagram.

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Yemen Blame Game Begins: “Saudi-American F**k Up Of Epic Proportions”

An official affiliated with Saudi-backed militias in Yemen told CNN that the Houthis “committed everything they had – waves upon waves of fighters… along with their available ballistic missiles and weapons.”

“But the air support never came,” the source said in reference to the fact that the Saudi-backed side rapidly folded and retreated in just days last week. “And Mocha has now fallen.” The blame game has begun after a mere 36 hours has seen the Saudi coalition fracture on the ground, and the finger-pointing is likely to go on in the halls of government, now as Saudi territory continues coming under direct missile and drone threat.

Another regional source told CNN on Thursday that “The failure this time is not with the Yemenis” but that “it’s a disaster made in DC and Riyadh.”

According to some further key lines and expletives:

The regional source told CNN that it was “a complete failure of political leadership” amid fierce squabbling and delayed decision-making in Riyadh.

“There was not one air strike throughout the day yesterday (by Saudi support forces), although there were minute-by-minute updates,” the regional source added. “It’s a Saudi-American f**k up of epic proportions.“

There are at the same time widespread reports that the Iran-backed Houthis have seized US made M-ATVs and MRAP armored vehicles. 

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CIA ‘Proxy’: Unravelling Saudi Arabia’s True 9/11 Role

In the leadup to 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Compelling evidence Saudi Arabian intelligence not only managed several hijackers as agents, but did so as a “proxy” for the CIA, has lain unexamined in plain sight for years. Yet, the Agency’s sinister shadowplay remains eerily absent from media consideration, despite mounting recognition of Riyadh’s role.

Bayoumi has long-been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival to the US in January 2000. A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, ruled there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi – and the House of Saud by extension – had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.

However, the media remained steadfastly silent a year later when a bombshell filing from the Office of Military Commissions – the legal body overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – was released. The document summarises classified government discovery disclosures, and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents shed unprecedented light on how the CIA recruited at least Hazmi and Mihdhar if not others who participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID).

The same document elucidates how the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavoured “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington DC embassy. No wonder – probing those connections would’ve amply revealed how the GID was acting as a “cutout” for the CIA, in all its clandestine dealings with the 9/11 hijackers.

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