CAIRO (The Thursday Times) — Egypt has confirmed that its troops are already in Saudi Arabia, with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty saying they are there to defend “sensitive sites, including holy sites and others” against attacks by Yemen’s Houthis.
“We already have a military presence there at the request of our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia to help, and we are strengthening that,” Abdelatty said in a television interview broadcast on Tuesday night. It was the first official confirmation from Cairo that Egyptian forces were on Saudi soil.
He said the troops first arrived “a few months ago after the attacks and aggressions on Saudi Arabia during the escalation with Iran”. That places the deployment before October, when President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi asked parliament to authorise sending forces to defend the kingdom. Lawmakers approved the request by a two-thirds majority on October 26, as Egypt’s constitution requires for combat missions abroad.
What was sent
Abdelatty did not say how many soldiers were deployed or which weapons. Reports citing Egyptian military sources say the force includes a squadron of Rafale fighter jets, helicopters, transport aircraft, ground troops, and air-defence batteries, among them the locally configured Amoun system built to stop low-flying drones and missiles. Other reports put the number of soldiers in the hundreds.
One source quoted in those reports said the mission was to defend Saudi Arabia, not to attack the Houthis, though the force was allowed to defend itself if attacked. Saudi Arabia has not commented publicly on the deployment.
Houthi pressure on the kingdom
The confirmation comes as the kingdom faces repeated Houthi missile and drone attacks. Saudi air defences this week destroyed cruise missiles aimed at Riyadh, and the coalition said it downed drones heading for Mecca, which the Houthis denied. The G7 foreign ministers condemned the strikes and urged Iran to stop arming the group.
Abdelatty described Egypt’s role as defensive, focused mainly on air defence. A senior Houthi figure had earlier denounced the Egyptian parliament’s vote as a declaration of war.
The Pakistan link
Egypt is part of a looser four-nation grouping with Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan, whose foreign ministers met in Islamabad in March. Cairo has reportedly been weighing whether to join the Makkah defence pact signed by the other three in August, which Türkiye’s parliament approved last week.
Pakistan’s military spokesman said on Wednesday that the country’s commitment to Saudi security was ‘non-negotiable’ and that Pakistani troops were already in the kingdom under the alliance.
