Saudi Arabia just pulled Pakistan and Turkiye into its war with the Houthis

The Houthis just fired on Riyadh and Khamis Mushayt again.

And this time, Pakistan and Turkiye's own military chiefs were already sitting in Saudi Arabia when it happened.

So here's what happened. A few hours ago, the Houthis launched two drones at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital. At the same time, they fired two ballistic missiles at Khamis Mushayt, a city in the southwest that holds a major Saudi air base.

Saudi air defences shot down all four. Nothing got through.

Saudi Civil Defence had put out alerts overnight for Khamis Mushayt and Abha. Not for Riyadh.

Turki Al-Maliki, the coalition forces spokesperson, posted the interceptions on X as they happened. But there's a mix-up worth flagging. Arab News calls him a Colonel. Gulf News, Al Jazeera and CNN call him a Major-General. Nobody has cleared that up yet.

And here's the line that matters most. Hezam Alasad, a member of the Houthi Political Bureau, says quote "small-scale rehearsal for a full-scale escalation".

That's the Houthis themselves saying this attack was a test run for something bigger.

No one has reported anyone killed or wounded in this attack. Two days ago, the coalition said it had already intercepted six ballistic missiles fired at Yanbu and Taif. And this fits a pattern. The Houthis have been ramping up attacks on Saudi Arabia since they declared a naval blockade against the kingdom in July, including strikes on Saudi-linked shipping in the Red Sea. Earlier this month, Houthi attacks wounded 73 civilians, Saudi Arabia said at the time.

But what happened alongside this attack is the bigger story.

About a day before the drones and missiles were fired, Saudi Arabia's, Pakistan's and Turkiye's military chiefs sat down together in Riyadh. General Fayyadh bin Hamed Al-Ruwaili, Saudi Arabia's Chief of General Staff. Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff. General Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, Turkiye's Chief of General Staff.

They talked about the threats facing Saudi Arabia. And they agreed to deepen military and intelligence cooperation, and to bring their defensive capabilities closer together.

So why does that meeting matter so much?

Because of what it sits under. Last month, on 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed for Saudi Arabia. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed for Turkiye. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed for Pakistan.

Under that agreement, an armed attack on any one of the three countries counts as an attack on all three.

So the chiefs were already in the room, working out how the pact would actually run, when the missiles came in.

Prince Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister, says he reaffirmed with Pakistan's army chief, General Asim Munir, their continued joint efforts to confront attacks against the kingdom under the agreement.

And that Riyadh meeting didn't come out of nowhere. It followed talks in New York a few days earlier between Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and Hakan Fidan, Turkiye's Foreign Minister.

Here's what we still don't know. Al Jazeera reported that the statement announcing the chiefs' meeting never said when they'd meet, or what kind of support was on the table.

And that's still true right now. Nobody has said how many troops, if any, Pakistan or Turkiye might send. Nobody has said whether bringing their forces closer together means intelligence and air-defence support, or actual combat troops on the ground.

The Houthis haven't said anything about the chiefs' meeting at all.

And there's a wider picture here too. Emmanuel Macron, France's President, said this week that France would send soldiers, radars and defence systems to protect Yanbu, a key Saudi oil-export port. All of this is landing at a moment when global oil supplies are already under pressure, with the Strait of Hormuz largely shut down by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The Mecca agreement was signed as a promise. If one of the three gets attacked, the others respond.

What's happening this week looks like something else. The three of them moving together, before anyone has even had to call in that promise.