A New Alliance Guards the Red Sea

On August 13, Saudi Arabia announced that a coalition of 39 countries will patrol the Red Sea. The Multinational Maritime Defense Coalition is based at the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah and is almost certainly designed to deter the Houthi terror group in Yemen, although the coalition statements did not mention it by name.

Saudi Arabia and 13 other nations in the group have reportedly completed all formalities in joining, with the others affirming their intent to do so.

• Many members of the coalition—including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the internationally recognized government of Yemen—have directly fought with the Houthis or their sponsor, Iran, within the past few months.
• Others, like Bangladesh and Nigeria, are far away from the Middle East but are majority Muslim.

Intriguingly, Pakistan is in the alliance, contributing its deputy leader under a Saudi commander. Saudi Arabia has signed two separate mutual defense treaties with Pakistan. The first, signed in 2025, almost got activated against Iran during the Iran war’s active fighting, sometime in March or April. The second was signed August 7.

Pakistan shares a direct border with Iran and has nuclear weapons.

• Pakistan’s involvement in the Red Sea reflects its increasingly powerful role in protecting fellow Sunni Muslim states from Shia Iran and its proxies.

Keep watching the Red Sea. One of the most important trade routes has become the focus of a fight between two power blocs. Your Bible ties a fight over this exact choke point to the return of Jesus Christ—as Gerald Flurry explained in his Trumpet cover article “The Battle for the Red Sea.”