Update(1135ET): The Houthis have released new footage which appears to confirm the earlier Saudi F-15 jet shootdown, with aircraft falling in the Marib area. The footage shows militants celebrating near the wreckage.
Below is the clip as released by Ansar Allah officials, which has since been given confirmation by some foreign and international outlets. It suggests that the Houthis have locally-made ability to down advanced aircraft, which should seriously worry Riyadh and Washington.
مشاهد نوعية لإسقاط طائرة مقاتلة سعودية من نوع F15 وحطامها في محافظة مأرب - 16 سبتمبر 2026م pic.twitter.com/rk0suliePT
— الإعلام الحربي اليمني (@MMY1444) September 16, 2026According to the latest on the fighting in Yemen, clashes are intensifying:
Yemen’s pro-government Southern Giants Forces say that they are engaged in clashes with Houthi forces on the Kahboub front near the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
The government-aligned forces claim in a social media post that they have inflicted heavy personnel and equipment losses on the Houthi forces.
Global oil prices continue climbing amid a slew of negative headlines:
From bad to worse for the coalition:
Looks like the Yemenis weren't lying about downing a Saudi jet today. pic.twitter.com/2t4tTYoa6F
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) September 16, 2026* * *
Yemen's Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement has claimed to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet in a Wednesday statement, saying they utilized domestic made munitions to do it.
"The Yemeni Armed Forces, with Allah's aid and grace, succeeded in shooting down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet while it was carrying out hostile operations," Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced.
Royal Saudi Air ForceHe said the fighter jet had been targeted "using a locally made" missile over Marib - after the Saudi coalition has launched some 450 strikes. The area of the alleged downing is some 75 miles east of Sanaa.
Saudi authorities have not acknowledged any shootdown and have not immediately commented on the claim.
Overnight, the big news out of the conflict focused on Saudi claims that it had intercepted a Houthi drone targeting Yemen in a "heinous" act targeting Islam's holiest site.
However, the Houthis are vehemently denying sending a drone on Mecca. "Our operations target its oil facilities and military bases, which are far removed from the sacred sites," Saree said further.
The Houthi military spokesman called out the "fabrications and lies propagated by the criminal al-Saud regime cannot deceive anyone."
Missile alerts had been issued for the population of Mecca, and plenty of old and fake social media videos purported to capture footage of a drone inbound on Mecca, but so far no clear evidence has emerged of the alleged targeting.
But the Saudi claims were enough to get Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to condemn Wednesday "in the strongest possible terms the dastardly and heinous" the alleged attack on Mecca.
"The people of Pakistan are saddened and perturbed by this outrageous act," he said on X.
Unconfirmed image of downed jet posted by Iranian state media:
On Wednesday morning, Yemeni Army confirmed that it had shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter aircraft over Marib Province. pic.twitter.com/4nk1d1DYi6
— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) September 16, 2026Pakistan and Turkey just recently this summer signed a comprehensive "Mecca Defense Pact", and the Saudi claims that Mecca was targeted by drone are perhaps intended to secure the help of allies in dealing with the advancing Houthis menace while a Red Sea 'siege for siege' policy is still in effect. As for the lates developments to emerge Wednesday, via Newsquawk:
Houthis say they carried out two military operations, targeting Saudi Aramco in Yanbu with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones and Khamis Mushait Air Base with a number of ballistic missiles.
The damaged Saudi East-West pipeline could still take five to six weeks to come back online, according to some estimates.
* * *
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 05:01Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,
A Dutch 'activist' who climbed Winston Churchill's statue in Parliament Square, sprayed it with "Zionist war criminal," "Globalise the Intifada" and Hamas-style red triangles, then argued the graffiti didn't count because it could be washed off, has walked out of Southwark Crown Court a free man.
The bill for cleaning the monument ran into thousands. The man who did it has escaped criminal charges.
Olax Outis, also known as Caspar San Giorgi, 39, defaced Churchill earlier this year while wearing a red boiler suit reading "I support Palestine Action." Prosecutor Peter Ratliff told jurors he sprayed the words 'Free Palestine' and red triangles on the front, and 'Never Again Is Now' on the rear. On the plinth he scrawled 'Globalise the Intifada,' 'Stop the Genocide' and 'Zionist war criminal,' plus a Dutch line he later rendered as 'The Hague sends their regards.'
UPDATE: The Dutch Palestine Action fan who vandalised Winston Churchill's statue with slogans like "Globalise the Intifada" and red triangles was just found NOT GUILTY of criminal damage. This country's legal system is a nasty joke. pic.twitter.com/HYmjUTnZGy
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) September 15, 2026A Greater London Authority heritage warden saw him doing it and called the police. Officers were there within two minutes. Specialist cleaners were not far behind. Court figures put the damage at £11,970 when he was first charged. Later reporting on the restoration bill listed more than £7,000, including police barriers at £612 plus VAT and an emergency clean and restore at £6,504 plus VAT.
He denied criminal damage. The paint was washable, he said. He was "sending a message to parliament." He was "preventing a crime." The jury agreed he was not guilty.
In the dock he was unrepentant. "I'm proud to be a citizen of The Hague," he told them. "If I had a larger canvas and more time, I would have written if Keir Starmer doesn't come to The Hague, The Hague will come for him. My wish is to see him on trial in The Hague." On the verdict itself: "Whether you convict me or not is not too much of a concern for me. Whether I get acquitted, deported, imprisoned for years, I can be proud of having spoken about injustice and I have accounted for my actions. I will accept your judgement."
'It is pathetic! It is astonishing! I cannot believe the country we live in.' @MartinDaubney fumes at confirmation that the man who painted 'Free Palestine' on the Chrurchill statue in Westminster being cleared of criminal damage. pic.twitter.com/t4pWNeXiu8
— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 15, 2026He had already claimed the stunt online. He had come to Britain, he said, to "deface a statue of one of history's most well-known war criminals, Winston Churchill." Churchill, in his telling, was "the Keir Starmer of his time."
Downing Street called the vandalism "completely abhorrent" in February and said Churchill was "a great Briton" who "must be held to account." The Home Office called the vandals "a disgrace." The Greater London Authority said it was "appalled." Six months later a jury decided the spray cans did not amount to a crime.
'Many people find it an abhorrent form of protest.'
Social policy analyst Dr Rakib Ehsan reacts to an activist being cleared of 'desecrating' the Winston Churchill outside of Parliament. pic.twitter.com/w8hNxroiDg
Heidi Bachram, whose husband's relatives were murdered and taken hostage by Hamas, blasted the decision, urging "This country's legal system is a nasty joke,"and adding "He should have been deported." A foreigner, she noted, can "paint a threat to Jews on the statue of our greatest leader with the added red triangle to make clear it isn't the 'peaceful' version of Intifada and GET AWAY WITH IT."
This is the closing speech of Olax Outis where he says he should have done something more "spectacular". Like burning down a weapons factory as a group did in Czech Republic. This is extraordinary and I cannot comprehend this man is walking free. pic.twitter.com/vstz61VJwr
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) September 15, 2026What I don't understand about the jury sympathising with this guy is his blatant disingenuousness. Here he complains about not getting an interpreter while speaking in almost perfect English. We live in Bizarro World. pic.twitter.com/plMYxyn3E5
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) September 15, 2026You won't even get convicted as along as it's 'protest'. I wonder if this would have happened if it were far right messages though.
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) September 15, 2026This is a disgusting ruling that will only embolden far-left thugs to vandalise our national hero's statue time and time again.
Would the same injustice have been done if it were Gandhi's or Mandela's statue that had been defaced? https://t.co/MjwUN4oeh4
WANKER who did this, desecrated Winston Churchill found not guilty of criminal damage arguing in court the paint washed off.
A Green light for these bastards to do the same to anything else.
Imagine if you threw some of that on a Mosque, your feet wouldn't touch the floor.... pic.twitter.com/pYiYrgKwiG
That is the two-tier point, and it is not a slogan. The Met and Greater Manchester Police spent last winter warning that "globalise the intifada" could get you arrested. The same words went up in red on Churchill's monument. The man who put them there told a jury the paint came off. The jury said not guilty.
None of this sits in a vacuum. Churchill is being taken apart in official rooms while activists take him apart in the square.
Last week it emerged the Bank of England had spent more than £85,000 researching how to get him off the £5 note. Consultants told officials that portraits of notable Britons were "elitist and divisive," a "backward-looking vision of the UK that carries too great a risk of division and controversy." Hedgehogs and puffins are waiting in the wings. Nigel Farage called the plan "absolutely crackers." Kemi Badenoch called it "erasing our history."
The same city that cannot convict a man for spraying "Zionist war criminal" across Churchill is being lectured by the UN's racial discrimination committee to put up statues of people of African descent as atonement for slavery - as if Britain had not banned the trade, spent blood and treasure suppressing it, and already spent years ripping down or boxing up its own monuments.
Sadiq Khan's Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm was built for that mood. Churchill's statue was boarded up in 2020. The lecture has not stopped.
Churchill's statue today in London. I'm speechless. pic.twitter.com/lU6Y37my7e
— Antonello Guerrera (@antoguerrera) June 12, 2020They even installed the punchline. On Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth last week City Hall unveiled Tschabalala Self's five-metre Lady in Blue - sold as an "everywoman," a "symbol of confidence and purpose," and, in the CNN version, a win because it is "not another White man." It stands in the ceremonial heart of the capital, opposite Nelson, paid for out of the same public art machine that treats British victory as an embarrassment.
Picture the same red paint poured all over that figure. The press releases write themselves. The outrage would be industrial.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 05:00In a rare development, Belarus - which forms a 'Union State' with Russia, has received partial US sanctions relief after it agreed to free 25 political prisoners.
President Trump's envoy, John Coale, revealed to reporters in the Belarusian capital Minsk: "We agreed to an interim deal, and as a show of goodwill Belarus will release 25 people and in exchange the United States will lift sanctions on two companies."
Kremlin.ru/ White HouseThe deal follows a much bigger amnesty for prisoners brokered by Washington that occurred last March. At that time the Lukashenko government freed a huge amount - 250 people.
"We will continue to improve U.S.-Belarus relations and are working to secure the release of more people in the very near future. We are not finished!" Coale had later posted on X.
One regional outlet has outlined what the Belarussians are getting in return:
The two companies to be removed from U.S. sanctions are Lakokraska, a manufacturer of paints and industrial coatings, and Bellesbumprom, a state-owned industrial concern that oversees the forestry, pulp and paper sectors. Sanctions against them have been in place since 2008 and 2023, respectively.
Coale also promised Lukashenko on Tuesday to get U.S. banks to hand back tens of millions of dollars in frozen Belarusian assets.
Back in September of 2025, there had been an initial breakthrough deal which centered on the release of 52 prisoners deemed held on political grounds, such as based on speech or political activism.
Russia's aviation sector has also long been sanctioned, leading to the potential for unsafe travel or possible aerial disasters - as aging fleets are in need of regular servicing, often dependent on access to US and Western parts. This is something Minsk has also sought to grain relief from Washington for.
President Trump has in the recent past indicated that he looks forward to meeting with President Lukashenko in the future, in a sign of a likely further thawing of relations.
BREAKING:
Belarus has freed 25 political prisoners. They are now in Lithuania.
U.S. special envoy John Coale published a photo of those released.
Among them are journalists, musicians, lawyers, and other well-known protest figures. pic.twitter.com/5CH31mdVgJ
More broadly, this is also part of US efforts to reverse spiraling bilateral relations with Moscow, given that Russia and Belarus work hand and glove in defense, economic, and political areas. Belarusian territory has long been a staging ground for Putin's 'special military operation' in Ukraine as well, and hosts Russian tactical nukes - which Europe has long kept a very close eye on.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 04:15Authored by Paul Birch via The Daily Sceptic,
Many of us in Britain still flatter ourselves that we live in a free country. Although the UK isn't quite a police state (not yet anyway), neither is it a country in which the individual can any longer speak without glancing over his or her shoulder. The old compact of a liberal society was simple - the state punished genuine criminality, while opinion was left to the rough justice of argument, satire and public disagreement.
That compact has now been comprehensively torn up. Across Britain, speech that would once have been answered by rebuttal or humour is now treated as a matter for police, regulators and secretive Whitehall machinery. A report published this week by civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch states that more than 62,000 people in the United Kingdom were arrested for communications offences over a five year period, with at least 18,500 charged and 12,292 convicted. These numbers should alarm anyone who still believes the citizen is master and the state is servant.
This is not some marginal administrative adjustment. It is the apparatus of speech control operating on an industrial scale. Some cases will involve genuine threats - stalking, domestic abuse or harassment - and those cases should, of course, be investigated. But when arrest numbers vastly outstrip those of conviction, as is highlighted in the report, it is clear the process itself has become the punishment. The knock at the door, the search, the device seizure, the interview, the stigma, the potential loss of employment and the unmistakable lesson to everyone watching - keep quiet.
Worse, enforcement appears completely arbitrary. Big Brother Watch has described a "postcode lottery" of speech policing, with sharply different arrest rates between forces. Cumbria was reported as arresting people at dramatically higher rates than neighbouring Northumbria (although Cumbria Police has history when it comes to 'woke' policing). Liberty which varies by postcode is not liberty at all. It is permission, granted or withheld by local institutional mood. If the same national law produces radically different policing outcomes, the law is either too vague to restrain power or too tempting for power to resist.
The root of the problem lies in modern speech law and its elasticity. The Crown Prosecution Service guidance on communications offences covers offences under the Malicious Communications Act 1988, the Communications Act 2003 and Part 10 of the Online Safety Act 2023, including offences involving false or threatening communications. The framework encompasses messages said to be "grossly offensive", "indecent", "obscene" or "menacing". Those words may sound reassuring in a statute book, but in the hands of ideological bureaucracies they become draconian tools to subdue inconvenient perspectives.
Recent cases expose the rot. In Hertfordshire, Rosalind Levine and Maxie Allen were arrested after complaints about their daughter's primary school appeared in a parents' WhatsApp group. They were held for eleven hours on suspicion including harassment and malicious communications. Hertfordshire Police later admitted the legal criteria for arrest were not met and agreed to pay them £20,000 in compensation. This is what happens when public bodies discover that the police can be weaponised as a complaints department with handcuffs.
The same authoritarian drift is visible with the now notorious notion of the Non-Crime Hate Incident. The clue is in the name - no crime has been committed. Lawful speech has been recorded by police in a way that brands ordinary people with a quasi-criminal stain. The College of Policing has now proposed major reforms, explicitly recognising that lawful free speech is not a police matter and that personal data should be recorded only where there is a clear policing purpose. That admission matters. It is an institutional confession that the state wandered far beyond its proper boundary - although it remains to be seen how police senior management across the country, many of whom are politically motivated, interpret these reforms.
My final role in policing involved facilitating the removal of terrorist content from the internet. This consisted of clear, unequivocal material glamourising proscribed groups, often including graphic footage of combat and the murder of captives. However, we began to notice that we were being tasked increasingly to assess content which was much more subjective: not violent or calling for violence, but 'hateful' - and only if viewed from a very specific point on the philosophical spectrum. This became more apparent with the establishment of police hate crime teams, and the fact that pursuing a nebulous 'far Right' was something which could gain one significant career advantages.
Then there is the darker machinery of government itself. Big Brother Watch's ' Ministry of Truth' investigation alleged that secretive Whitehall counter-disinformation units monitor lawful political dissent online, including politicians, journalists, academics, campaigners and members of the public. In counter-terrorism policing, we were aware of the existence of some such units, but it is now clear this operation is much more extensive and that it runs much deeper than at first thought.
The public are told this is all about 'misinformation', but it has drifted into monitoring criticism of government policy. This is how censorship grows in a democracy - not with bonfires of books, but with dashboards, 'trusted-flagger' relationships, 'narrative' reports and officials quietly nudging platforms to reduce the reach of inconvenient opinions.
The Online Safety Act has only exacerbated the danger by shifting censorship pressure onto content service providers. Defenders say it targets illegality and protects children. Yet the predictable and inevitable result of duties, regulatory risk and political panic, is over-removal. Platforms don't need to be commanded in plain language to censor; they need only be made afraid. Risk-averse companies will hide lawful speech, demand identity checks, throttle debate and call it compliance. The censor's hand now often wears a corporate glove, especially if advertising revenue streams are threatened.
A serious country punishes tangible threats, criminality and violence. It doesn't send the police after off-colour jokes, parental complaints or political dissent. We have to choose. We can choose to remain a liberal democracy in which the state respects the citizen, or we can become a managerial state in which the citizen fears a file, a knock on the door, a call from an online safety team or the quiet downgrade of their opinions.
Speech offences need to be drastically narrowed to those which call for direct violence or harm; ideological intelligence-gathering against lawful expression should be abolished; regulators ought to be restrained, and government content-flagging outside the terrorist space must be transparent.
Free speech isn't a courtesy extended by ministers, chief constables or Silicon Valley compliance teams. It is the condition of citizenship in any civilised country. Without it, liberty is just a word in the dictionary.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 03:30There's been another dangerous incident and major 'close call' involving a Russian ship in international waters off Europe.
In this case, which unfolded Monday, a Danish military helicopter reportedly hovered near a Russian military frigate, seeking to monitor and photograph it.
Illustrative, via Naval TechnologySoon after, according to the account of Danish military officials, the Fennec military helicopter was fired upon by flares from the Russian ship.
It happened in the Baltic Sea, after which Moscow's ambassador in Copenhagen, Vladimir Barbin, laid blame solely on the Danish side for the helicopter's "dangerous maneuvers".
One of the flares, which are typically only used for warning signals at sea when a ship is distressed, is said to have passed dangerously close to the helicopter.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the incident serious and framed it as an extension of Russia's so-called hybrid campaign against Europe and NATO.
"Russia wants to sow fear and discord. Our answer is to stand closer together and strengthen the defense of Denmark and Europe," Frederiksen said.
And the country's Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen also condemned the event as having endangered lives.
"Denmark is working to ensure that all shipping can pass peacefully through Danish waters, but Russia is gradually moving the line for what it considers acceptable behavior," Rasmussen said, and confirmed he summoned Russia's ambassador.
Below is an example of European media playing the hawks, pressing officials over invoking NATO Article 5 'collective defense':
Denmark’s Defence Minister Jeppe Bruus told TV 2 News that one flare passed within a “matter of metres” of the aircraft, and accused Russia of “deeply unprofessional seamanship”.
When asked if Denmark would seek Article 5 consultations over the incident – invoking the NATO measure that considers an attack against one member of the bloc to be an attack against all of them – Bruus said the incident was being taken seriously, but “we are not there”.
Barbin said he had complained last year about what he called dangerous fly-bys and low hovering by a Danish helicopter over the Russian warship Vice-Admiral Kulakov.
Tensions have been soaring between Russia and Scandinavian countries of late in northern waters, particularly after early this month Norway seized a Russian government expedition vessel as it was docked at a far northern island, deemed an international zone.
Russia's Defense Minister awards corvette commander for 'DECISIVE ACTIONS' against a Danish helicopter in Baltic Sea neutral waters
Danes approached Russian warship & IGNORED international communications on Sept. 14
To prevent provocation, commander fired 2 red flares — Danes… pic.twitter.com/WXOMie2ZTK
Putin had described the incident as Ukraine's Western backers being "complicit in international terrorism" - given the seizure came at the request of the Zelensky government.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 02:45Turkey's new commitments to Saudi Arabia under the Mecca defence pact could increase the risk of Ankara being drawn into a confrontation with Yemen's Houthis, a development that could have significant consequences for Turkish supply lines to the Horn of Africa. Although Turkey has yet to ratify the pact, expected in October, continued Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia, and Ankara’s recent participation in the Saudi-led Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance make some form of confrontation possible.
Several regional experts interviewed by Middle East Eye said Ankara does not want a clash with the Houthis. Instead, they suggested Turkey could use its relationships with Saudi Arabia and Iran to help defuse tensions while deploying military equipment to help Riyadh better defend itself.
A Turkish official told MEE that Riyadh had not formally requested Ankara’s assistance under the Mecca pact, which brings together Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. However, experts also noted that Ankara has much to lose from an escalation, which could disrupt Turkish military, commercial and energy supply lines through the Red Sea.
Turkey's Somali Naval Task Group on an escort and protection mission for the Cagri Bey Drilling Ship & support vessels off the coast of Somalia. Source: Turkish Defense MinistryEbuzer Demirci, a research fellow at the Secure Futures Lab at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said Bab al-Mandeb, which has effectively been controlled by the Houthis since the weekend, is a gateway to China, India and East Africa for Turkey. Any restrictions imposed on Turkish shipping would increase trade costs and transit times.
“But the more specific exposure is Somalia,” he told MEE. “Turkey’s presence there - the embassy, the military training base in Mogadishu, offshore oil exploration activities and the spaceport project - is supplied from Turkey through the Suez-Red Sea route.”
Demirci added that although personnel and urgent cargo are transported by air, heavy equipment and naval rotations move by sea and must pass through Bab al-Mandeb.
“Somalia itself trades with the Gulf and Asia through the Indian Ocean and would not be cut off by a closure,” he said. “What would be affected is the direct line between Ankara and Mogadishu, at a time when piracy off Somalia is already rising again.”
Risks of a direct interventionDemirci said Houthi restrictions would not completely undermine Turkish influence in the region, since it is rooted in institutions in Somalia and other African countries rather than being solely dependent on maritime traffic. Turkey could also sustain its operations through air transport, he added, although at a substantially higher cost.
Turkey already has a naval presence in the region. Turkish warships are guarding an energy exploration vessel off the Somali coast, while Ankara separately continues to participate in a UN-backed anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden.
Senior Ansar Allah official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti last week warned Turkey and Pakistan against intervening in support of Saudi Arabia, saying that any direct Turkish or Pakistani intervention on Saudi Arabia’s behalf would carry a “heavy price”.
The general view in Ankara is that Turkey cannot afford a confrontation with the Houthis and should instead focus on building bridges among Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Yemeni group.
Betul Dogan-Akkas, an assistant professor of international relations at Ankara University, said Turkey has not designated the Houthis as a terrorist organization, leaving open possible channels of communication.
She argued that Istanbul’s sizeable Yemeni diaspora, whose members have deep tribal connections, could provide Ankara with valuable political capital and allow it to become more diplomatically involved in efforts to resolve the war in Yemen. “The members of the Mecca alliance would probably not want their first action to be directed against another Muslim group,” she told MEE.
Israel's military has meanwhile been deepening involvement in 'Somaliland' region, after Netanyahu govt. gave official recognition.
Source: TOIMuhammed Huseyin Mercan, an academic and senior fellow at the Ankara-based think tank Seta, agreed, saying that military intervention would create complications extending well beyond the Red Sea.
Pointing to last week’s attack by Iran-aligned Iraqi militias on the East-West Pipeline supplying Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, Mercan said a Turkish confrontation with the Houthis could also strain Ankara’s relations with Baghdad and complicate peace efforts involving the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Ankara has recently made progress in persuading the PKK and affiliated groups to dissolve themselves and integrate into local political and administrative structures, with Baghdad playing a crucial role in that process.
Mercan said Iraqi militias could disrupt these efforts and create additional complications for Turkey. The militias have demanded the complete withdrawal of Turkish troops from northern Iraq as part of negotiations over their own disarmament and integration into the Iraqi armed forces. “Turkey should try to bring all sides to the table and help lay the groundwork for a comprehensive agreement to end Yemen’s civil war,” he told MEE.
Defensive aid and political roleThe experts agreed, however, that these risks would not necessarily prevent Turkey from providing Saudi Arabia with military equipment, air-defense systems and drones. There are signs that Ankara intends to do precisely that.
Senior regional officials familiar with the discussions told MEE that Turkey was preparing to provide defensive assistance while avoiding direct intervention inside Yemen.
The officials said the assistance could include the deployment of aircraft, operators and technical personnel, possibly beginning in October after Turkey ratifies the Mecca defense pact. The Turkish parliament is currently in recess and is not expected to consider ratification before then. “Preparations and discussions are ongoing,” one regional official said. “The defense system will be established to counter attacks originating from Yemen, including missiles and drones.”
Turkey is already active in the Saudi defense establishment and in recent years, Ankara has signed several drone and ammunition supply agreements with Riyadh
Demirci said the most likely scenario at Bab al-Mandeb was not a complete closure of the strait but selective Houthi control. Under such a scenario, the group could apply pressure to Saudi-linked traffic while allowing other ships to pass under conditions it sets.
A Turkish Navy warship arrived in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on Saturday and docked at the Port of Mogadishu.
The vessel, TCG Göksu (F-497), is a Gabya-class frigate that has previously operated off the Somali coast as part of Turkey’s naval mission in the region.
The… pic.twitter.com/lWUUNHGJQx
That could prove costly and disruptive for Ankara, he said, but would remain manageable. “What the Houthis should understand is that Turkey’s commitments in this region are not abstract,” Demirci said.
“Ankara has a defense agreement with Riyadh, a defense agreement with Mogadishu and a founding seat in the maritime coalition. The Houthis have no quarrel with Turkey, and it is in their interest to keep it that way.”
Yasmeen al-Eryani, executive director for knowledge production at the Yemeni think tank Sana’a Center, said the crisis also presented Turkey with an opportunity to assume a political role as a secondary intermediary. “For example, it could contribute to mitigating the impact of the Houthis’ dangerous advance in Bab al-Mandeb,” she told MEE.
“Turkey has actively strengthened its relations with Saudi Arabia while maintaining a delicate balance with Tehran. It can help convey messages, promote de-escalation and mitigate the impact of the conflict.”
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 02:00