Riyadh Warned of Imminent Attacks One Day Before Signing a Defence Pact With Turkey and Pakistan

The warning came on Thursday 6 August from one senior Saudi official who spoke anonymously. CNN’s version has the official citing “multiple intelligence reports” from Saudi, American and regional services indicating that Iraqi militia members, “in coordination with the Houthis,” are planning to attack “in the very near future” under IRGC guidance; Ynet reports the target set as Saudi civilian infrastructure — energy facilities, ports and airports. The same official said Saudi–US cooperation remains “very high” at all levels, including operationally with CENTCOM. There is a kinetic precedent nine days old: the Jerusalem Post notes that on 29 July Saudi Arabia said it had struck Iran-backed groups in Iraq jointly with CENTCOM, after blaming them for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, and that the militias said they would respond. The Critical Threats Iran Update of 1 August reports IRGC covert cells established in Iraq during the ceasefire, per eight Iraqi sources speaking to Reuters.

The pact itself is thinly sourced on everything except the date. Reuters cites two regional sources with direct knowledge; AFP cites one source close to the Saudi military and one close to the Saudi government, quoting the latter: “It was under discussion for a long time but the latest developments in the region expedites it.” AFP places the signing in Jeddah; Reuters-derived wire copy has Erdoğan travelling to Riyadh. The principals are Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, with Roya News reporting that Sharif and army chief Asim Munir had already arrived in the kingdom. No outlet has obtained the contents. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan already hold a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement, signed 17 September 2025 at Al-Yamamah Palace, with a clause treating an attack on one as an attack on both.

The southern half of the threat picture remains claimed rather than confirmed. On Wednesday 5 August, Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said his forces “successfully targeted the Saudi oil tanker Wafa in the northern Red Sea, off the coast of Yanbu, with a number of ballistic missiles,” and in a later statement claimed a missile strike on the Saudi tanker Daisy in the Gulf of Aden. Gulf News reports these were the eighth and ninth Saudi tankers targeted since the blockade of Saudi ports began, on figures supplied by the Houthi spokesman. Seatrade Maritime wrote that the Wafa incident “has not been independently verified”; TWZ said the same of Saree’s account. On Thursday the Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi troop concentrations inside Yemen and a “sensitive target” at Najran Airport. No Saudi military or maritime authority has commented on damage or casualties.

Assessment: Read the warning as a document with a function rather than as intelligence. It is one anonymous official from a government that is a party to the fighting, briefed the afternoon before that government signs a defence agreement it has not described, and it pre-authorises whatever Riyadh does next. The variable worth watching is not the threat but the clause: whether Turkey is joining the collective-security language Pakistan already has, or a looser training and industrial arrangement. Nobody has reported which, and the distinction determines whether Ankara has just taken on Iranian-aligned attacks on Saudi soil. Note also what the hedge implies about the Hormuz talks — a settlement that leaves Tehran collecting anything is a settlement Riyadh insures against.