On Thursday a phone clip from the apron at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh showed a black column climbing behind the terminal and a green-and-blue airliner sitting at the gate while ground crew stood and watched. Reuters verified video of thick smoke and flames at the airport. A witness and three people briefed on the incident said a commercial plane had caught fire; the Houthis claimed this was a ballistic missile. Saudi officials claimed debris from an intercepted missile hit a kindergarten and a medical complex. Cirium logged nearly half of Riyadh departures cancelled by 1500 GMT.
The New York Times, citing an unnamed senior Pakistani officer, said Pakistan Air Force jets were being used in strikes on the Houthis. A second unnamed official told the Times that the job was air support against drones and missiles, not a ground invasion. Nobody would say how many jets, which targets, or whether the bombs were falling inside Yemen. Hours later, Pakistan’s Information Ministry declared the story was misinformation. The official post from @FactCheckerMoIB: the NYT claim that PAF aircraft are employed against the Houthis is “fake and fabricated.” Details of any employment under the Makkah pact, it said, will come from the authorities, not from unnamed leaks.
What Islamabad has admitted is narrower, and still serious. ISPR chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told CNN the forces “are already there.” Analysts quoted by the Times put the contingent near 8,000, air force and army air defense included. Islamabad has already dismissed a Reuters figure of 30,000 to 40,000 as speculation. On October 5, the Makkah Alliance—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey—ordered rapid deployment into the kingdom after Houthi strikes, including attempts on Mecca and Madina. Turkey says it is sending kit and technicians, not combat troops.
The body count on the record is Saudi, not Pakistani. Civil aviation said attacks on Abha and Riyadh airports on October 6 and 7 killed three and wounded about 36: a Moroccan woman and an Algerian woman at Abha, a Sudanese man in Riyadh.
Daniel C. Green breaks down the story and asks: When will the United States withdraw from a conflict that is rapidly spreading across the Middle East?