Egypt
\nEgypt is ready to provide Saudi Arabia with the support it needs to defend its security and stability, the presidency said on Sunday.
\nEarlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said two officers were killed when their helicopter crashed near the Yemen border, after the rebel group claimed it shot the aircraft down.
\nThe coalition blamed a \u201ctechnical malfunction\u201d for the helicopter crash, which inflicted its first military fatalities since the long-running conflict with the Houthis reignited in July.
\nThe incident comes a week after strikes by the Houthis killed 13 people at Riyadh\u2019s international airport, the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
\nAn AH-6i reconnaissance helicopter belonging to the Saudi Ministry of National Guard crashed \u201cinside Saudi territory in Najran Region due to a technical malfunction\u201d, coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki said, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
\n\u201cThe accident resulted in the martyrdom of its aircrew, consisting of two officers.\u201d
\nLate on Saturday, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed the group had \u201cdowned an Apache helicopter belonging to the Saudi enemy\u201d in the same area.<\/p>\n
Egypt ready to give \u2018all necessary and possible forms of support\u2019
\nEgyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had requested an urgent parliament session to authorise the military, one of the region\u2019s largest and most powerful, to help defend Saudi Arabia if the kingdom requested its support.
\n\u201cEgypt will provide Saudi Arabia with all necessary and possible forms of support to defend its security and stability, protect its resources, territorial integrity and Islamic holy sites,\u201d the Egyptian presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
\nIt followed a meeting of Egypt\u2019s National Defence Council chaired by Sisi and attended by the parliamentary speaker, the prime minister and the army chief.
\nA parliamentary vote had been expected on authorising the request for military support on Sunday, but discussions were due to continue on Monday, two lawmakers and local media reports said.
\nSisi said in a speech on Saturday that Egypt would act in accordance with guidance from Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who visited Sisi on Sept 15, after fighting in Yemen reignited.<\/p>\n
Dar, Egypt FM condemn Houthi attacks
\nOn the diplomatic front, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar held a telephone conversation with Egypt\u2019s FM Dr Badr Abdelatty, the Foreign Office (FO) said.
\n\u201cThe two leaders exchanged views on recent regional developments and strongly condemned the Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, reaffirming their full solidarity with the Kingdom and support for its sovereignty, territorial integrity and security.\u201d
\nThey also discussed cooperation under the R-4 (Pakistan, Egypt, T\u00fcrkiye and Saudi Arabia) framework and looked forward to the next meeting of the R-4 soon to further strengthen mutual ties and to coordinate on the regional issues, the statement added.
\nThe foreign ministers of the four countries last met on Sept 21 in New York, where they had reaffirmed their support for Riyadh\u2019s sovereignty and supported its right to self-defence.
\nPakistan, which has signed two defence agreements with Riyadh, has repeatedly expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia.
\nThe first one, the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), was signed in Sept 2025, under which the two countries pledged that any attack on either nation would be treated as an act of aggression against both.
\nThe two countries are also parties to the Makkah Defence Alliance, which also includes Turkiye. The pact was signed on August 7 and provides that an attack on one member state would be treated as an attack on all.<\/p>\n
Yemen fighting
\nAfter an uneasy, four-year truce, Yemen\u2019s conflict has surged back to life, with the Houthis declaring a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia in July.
\nThe conflict intensified when Houthis captured territory around the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the Red Sea chokepoint and vital export route for Saudi oil since Iran blockaded the Gulf\u2019s Strait of Hormuz.
\nThe Houthis have also hit Saudi targets including tankers in the Red Sea, oil facilities and Riyadh\u2019s King Khalid International Airport.
\nOn the other hand, the Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government has launched repeated air raids on Houthi territory.
\nThe coalition said overnight that it intercepted two drones in the Riyadh area and a third over the oil-rich Eastern Province. Saudi authorities had earlier issued a threat alert in the capital.
\nTwo ballistic missiles \u201claunched by the terrorist Houthi militia towards Khamis Mushait\u201d were intercepted in the kingdom\u2019s south, the coalition added.
\nOn Saturday, the Houthis reported that Saudi strikes killed 12 people in Yemen, including three children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Egypt Egypt is ready to provide Saudi Arabia with the support it needs to defend its security and stability, the presidency said on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said two officers were killed when their helicopter crashed near the Yemen border, after the rebel group claimed it shot the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104537,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104511\/revisions\/104537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}