Pakistan 'fears' being dragged into new Yemen–Saudi war: Report

Last year’s defense pact between Islamabad and the kingdom declares that an ‘attack against one is an attack against both’

News Desk

Pakistan is concerned that the Ansarallah resistance movement and the Yemeni army’s recent retaliatory strike on Saudi Arabia could “draw” it into the conflict – particularly given its new defense agreement with the Gulf monarchy, Reuters cited sources as saying on 16 July.

The recent attack has “frustrated” Islamabad and may “complicate” its continued role as a mediator between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to the report.

“The attacks this week … pushed Islamabad's frustration with Iran to a new level [because] they raised the prospect of a new [Saudi–Ansarallah] conflict,” sources said.

The report adds that Pakistan was frustrated with Tehran earlier in the war due to its retaliatory strikes on US sites in Saudi Arabia – which opened up facilities to Washington for attacks on Iran and, according to reports, carried out its own direct strikes against the Islamic Republic.

“Our top civil and military leaders have conveyed to Iran at the highest level that the attacks on Saudi ​Arabia are attacks on Pakistan. It is our red line,” a Pakistani official told Reuters.

Pakistani security analyst Muhammad Amir Rana told the outlet that Islamabad was not “anticipating that the tensions will rise so suddenly."

According to the anonymous sources cited in the report, there is frustration and growing concern in Islamabad that involvement by the Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) “may be more likely to draw Pakistan into the conflict” than Iran’s previous strikes on the kingdom.

The sources explained that Pakistani troops are stationed near Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen and increase the risk of their exposure to harm.

Islamabad is also concerned about Red Sea shipping and the YAF’s ability to shut the Bab al-Mandab Strait. 

Iran struck US sites in Saudi Arabia multiple times throughout the war. Tehran, however, denied a number of particular attacks on the kingdom and referred to them as Israeli “false flags.”

Reports at the time also indicate that Mossad agents planned bombings in Gulf states with the aim of implicating Tehran and further inflaming tensions. 

But a recent Saudi airstrike on Sanaa International Airport, the first in years, prompted a serious Yemeni retaliation. 

The YAF targeted Saudi Arabia’s Abha Airport with missiles and drones. These were also the first direct Yemeni strikes against Saudi territory since 2021. 

The kingdom waged war against Yemen in 2015 at the head of an Arab coalition, after Ansarallah seized the capital and ousted the Saudi-backed president from Sanaa. 

A 2023 Saudi–Yemeni peace process nearly resulted in an agreement between the two sides. 

The peace talks stalled but prevented a major escalation from erupting. Yet the kingdom for years continued its illegal and deadly blockade on Yemeni ports and airports. 

Ansarallah had already begun mobilizing to expel Saudi forces from Yemen when the kingdom bombed Sanaa airport on 13 July.

The movement and the YAF are now vowing to respond harshly to any more Saudi attacks. “We will spare no effort in confronting Saudi Arabia with everything we possess,” Ansarallah’s leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said this week. 

This would potentially involve more direct Yemeni strikes on Saudi territory and energy infrastructure, as was the case in 2021 and 2022.

Pakistan would be required to confront any such attack as part of their defense pact with the kingdom reached in September 2025. 

That pact declares that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.”