Free Republic

From my balcony in the Judean mountains, I can see the lights of Jordan on a clear night and the skyline of Amman at sunrise. On other nights, I simply look south and east and know that the same Iranian missiles and drones from the Houthis in Yemen threatening my children and grandchildren are also threatening the mosques, holy cities, the oil fields, and the very capital that keep the House of Saud in power. That is the uncomfortable intimacy of this region. We are not friends. We are not yet even fully acknowledged as legitimate neighbors. Yet Riyadh is...

The defense minister accused Erdogan of financing and embracing Hamas, and claimed that he dreams of "restoring the Ottoman Empire" in a post on X/Twitter. "Now he's signed the 'Mecca Agreement' to defend Saudi Arabia," he said, "But when the Houthis fired missiles at Mecca and it was time to honor his word, he vanished into thin air." "Israel is strong and knows how to protect itself. We're not the Kurds and the desperate people he still oppresses in Turkey today," he said

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a joint defence agreement, saying an attack on one of them would be seen as an attack on all three. The pact was announced at a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the Saudi city of Mecca. The three countries have been looking to strengthen security ties as the war between the US and Iran has drawn in Saudi Arabia and disrupted maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping channel, and the Red Sea. Saudi...

The West needs to take note of a growing threat that could in the long term prove to be equal to or worse than the threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran. “Pakistan Asks Muslim Nations To Join ‘Islamic NATO,’” NDTV, August 10, 2026:Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has called for Islamic nations to set aside their differences and join Islamabad’s defence agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey to form a military alliance along the lines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Talking to Geo News, Asif said the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement shouldn’t be an ‘exclusive club’ and...

Iran has been invited to join the Mecca Agreement for Mutual Defense, the new security alliance established by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan earlier this month, Al Mayadeen reported on Saturday, citing a senior Iranian official. The invitation has not yet been officially confirmed by Iran's Foreign Ministry or by any of the three countries that are parties to the agreement. Mehdi Rahimi, head of the Iranian parliament's Khaneh Mellat news agency, told the channel that "Iran has received an invitation to join the Mecca Agreement, and the matter is under review." Rahimi added that countries in the region "are...

On Friday, August 7, 2026, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed a defense agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, referred to by many as a “(Sunni) Muslim NATO.” U.S. president Donald Trump praised the agreement without considering the consequences for America or its ally Israel, as well as how Greece and India would react to this deal. In a post shared on social media, Trump said he was “very happy” that the three countries had signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, adding that it showed the Middle East was “coming together” and would allow countries to defend themselves “in a more...

The elderly grimace, hobbling on crutches, and wide-eyed children stare, cradling chickens carried from homes they were forced to leave behind. "It feels good to be in my own country," 35-year-old Nazia says, just minutes after she crosses from Pakistan, where she was born, into Afghanistan. The Torkham crossing, known as "Zero Point", is where one hard life ends and another begins. "But I've never been to Afghanistan before and many people here don't even have enough bread to eat," Nazia sighs as she heads, two of her children in tow, toward registration counters festooned with white and black Taliban...