Pakistan has a "substantial number of forces" deployed in Saudi Arabia in a defensive capacity, Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman said Friday. "From Pakistan already we have substantial number of forces as well as resources in town, in Riyadh," spokesman Sajjad Haider Khan told journalists, according to the French news agency AFP, without specifying whether the deployment had grown under a major defense pact that Pakistan signed this year with Turkey and Saudi Arabia. He added that Pakistani military personnel in the kingdom "would not be crossing the borders of the other side for an attack on the Houthis, but of course [they are acting] in the defense of the territory." Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis have launched barrages of missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia this week, including attacks on Riyadh's international airport Thursday that killed three people.
Pakistan signed the defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey in August, committing the three countries to come to each other's aid in the event one is attacked. Khan declined to say whether additional Pakistani forces had arrived in Saudi Arabia since the kingdom's fight with the Houthis intensified in recent weeks, saying that "how much and when and where" forces would be deployed would be up to the trilateral alliance, which is headquartered in Riyadh with a retired Pakistani general as its secretary general. Khan noted that Pakistan's forces had been deployed in Saudi Arabia regularly since the 1980s, including after the signing of a bilateral agreement between Islamabad and Riyadh in 2025.
Three Saudi citizens were killed and several other people "of different nationalities" were wounded in attacks targeting Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport and a Saudia Airlines aircraft, the kingdom's civil aviation authority said Friday. Thursday's attack was the deadliest in Saudi Arabia since the kingdom and allied forces in neighboring Yemen launched a major military offensive last weekend aimed at retaking territory seized by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels. It was a significant escalation in what appears to be the new epicenter of the wider war in the Middle East sparked by the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran in late February.
The first attack Thursday afternoon targeted airport facilities, while the second struck the aircraft, which was empty at the time, the Saudi statement said. It did not identify those responsible, though the Houthis have claimed to target the airport repeatedly this week with ballistic missiles, including on Thursday. Hamoud Ali Alkalthami, the Saudia Group said in a statement seen by the .
It appeared to be the first confirmed attack on the Saudi national carrier since the new offensive against the Houthis began. The Saudi aviation agency, GACA, said in its statement that injuries to citizens and people of other nationalities "ranged from minor to serious." The Houthis this week warned global airlines "for the last time" about the potential consequences of operating in Saudi airspace, which they have declared a theater for military operations. On Wednesday, Saudi officials said attacks on the Riyadh and Abha airports claimed by the Houthis had killed three people.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Thursday that Iran had revised its proposals for negotiations with the United States and was ready to finalize them through intermediaries. "We have made our revisions to these proposals. Once they are finalized, we are supposed to sit down through the mediators and consolidate them," Pezeshkian said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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