Will Syria Attack the Houthis?

Syria is reportedly preparing to send thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia and Yemen to fight the Houthi terrorist group. This comes after Syria’s foreign minister said late last month that his country might join Saudi Arabia’s Mecca Pact with Turkey and Pakistan.

• Agence France-Presse, citing Yemeni officials, reported on November 7 that “hundreds” of Syrian troops have entered Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and up to 3,000 may be deployed.
• The New York Times reported November 10 that Syria sent 150 personnel to Yemen’s Thamud district near the Saudi border last month to “familiarize themselves with the geography.” The Times’s sources claimed Syria could send “thousands” against the Houthis.
• The Syrian government previously had publicly denied that it would send troops to either Saudi Arabia or Yemen.

What is the Mecca Pact? Signed August 7 by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement obligates each nation to regard an attack on one member as an attack on all members. On October 5, the three countries activated the alliance to defend the Saudis from the Houthis.

• The Houthis have conquered additional territory from the Yemeni government since September, consolidating their stranglehold on the southern Red Sea and enabling them to further attack Saudi Arabia and shipping heading to the kingdom’s Red Sea ports.

Psalm 83 prophesies that an alliance of Middle Eastern peoples will form so “that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (verse 4). As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in Chapter 4 of his booklet The King of the South, this is an end-time prophecy. Verse 6 names Edom, the Ishmaelites and the Hagarenes as part of this alliance. These are the ancestral peoples of modern Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria, respectively.

• The Mecca Pact may become the literal alliance prophesied in Psalm 83.

At the very least, the fact that it includes the same nations described in this Bible prophecy means it should be watched closely. As The King of the South explains, the alliance’s ultimate aim won’t be to protect the Arab world from the Houthis; it will be to attack America and Israel.