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The Shabwa record is now a provincial document. The media office said three ballistic missiles struck the Martyr Ahmed al-Sulaimani Training Centre at Al-Alam camp near Ataq on Monday, where recruits from several provinces were training for the internal security forces and police; it first reported 53 dead and 200 injured, and on Tuesday said an investigative committee had informed Governor Awad bin al-Wazir that the toll was 73 with 14 missing. The governor told AP the recruits were aged 18 to 20 and being trained for provincial security, not combat; the deputy governor, Fahad al-Khalifi, told AFP the province's hospitals were overwhelmed and had transferred the most serious cases to Hadramout and Aden. Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani called it a war crime on a non-military target and accused the Houthis of "attempting to fabricate a false media victory." Saree's statement said the missiles hit "Saudi enemy" concentrations at a camp run by Saudi officers. There was no comment from Riyadh in any source fetched.

The rest of the front is being counted by its combatants. The government's spokesman, Majid Al-Nuzaili, claimed 744 strikes on Houthi command centres, firing positions and supply lines in 24 hours under the Dawn of Yemen offensive, about 200 fighters neutralised and 90 vehicles destroyed; Saree claimed 93 Saudi strikes across eight provinces in the same window and 2,793 since the escalation began; Houthi media reported eight fishermen killed off Dhubab and, from Sunday, ten dead in a Saudi strike on a house in Sahar, Saada, with the Houthi health ministry putting Saudi-strike deaths at 141 over seven weeks; the government's health ministry said last week at least 1,282 had been killed across Yemen since August 6. In Taiz, AP reports a Houthi strike on a residential area killed two teenage girls and wounded six, and Volker Türk said the encirclement puts civilians at "grave risk." Government forces, with coalition air support, say they have regained the Red Sea coast overlooking Bab al-Mandab that the Houthis took in September; fighting continues there, around Taiz, and in Marib and al-Jawf.

Three parliamentary sources told Reuters on Tuesday that Turkey had submitted the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for ratification. The text Reuters has seen says in Article 1 that the parties shall use "all necessary means" to eliminate threats to one another's territorial integrity, sovereignty or borders, and in Article 2 that "in the event one of the parties is subjected to an armed attack or military aggression by another country or group of countries, the parties shall immediately provide assistance to the party under attack, utilising the full range of mutual assistance measures available to them," with the scope and nature of support decided "following an objective assessment of the assistance required." It cites Article 51 of the UN Charter, covers defence industry, intelligence, logistics and counter-terrorism "including at the operational level," and follows an emergency meeting in Riyadh this month at which the three agreed to ensure the "rapid deployment" of forces and capabilities in Saudi Arabia. Speaker Numan Kurtulmus, in Kyrgyzstan, will refer it to the foreign affairs commission on his return, possibly for debate on Friday, when the contents become public. Erdogan's communications director, Burhanettin Duran, said the partnership "aims to strengthen collective deterrence."

The brief that came with the text narrows it. A Turkish official told Reuters that Turkey's own contribution was expected to be limited to military equipment, intelligence sharing and weapons systems, and that no other form of deployment had taken place under the alliance so far. Fidan, asked how Turkey could help against the Houthis, said the agreement was "not an offensive agreement" and that Turkey would not send troops to another country to carry out attacks on its territory; the constitution requires separate parliamentary permission for any deployment abroad regardless of treaty. Turkey has agreed to join the Saudi-led coalition for navigational safety in the Red Sea and has expressed willingness to meet Riyadh's military technology needs. Pakistan, the third party, was in Tehran the same day: army chief Asim Munir left after Iran restated its conditions and ruled out moving enriched material abroad.

The Egyptian file has acquired numbers. Alhurra reports that Article 152 of the constitution requires at least 398 of 596 House members to send forces on a combat mission abroad; that the Civil Democratic Movement rejects any Egyptian role in a regional war and wants Cairo to mediate; that the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, with 11 seats, will abstain until the mission's "objectives, duration, costs" and troop protection are explained; that Wafd's Mohamed Abdel-Alim Dawoud will abstain although his party supports deployment; that Effat El-Sadat wants guarantees against renewed fighting; that Al-Azhar has called for an Arab and Islamic mediation committee and the Journalists Syndicate for diplomacy first. The government has not answered the objections in any statement found. Mostafa Bakry, a pro-Sisi lawmaker, said on X the delay was tied to Egyptian efforts to broker a political settlement in Yemen, and Alhurra reports Abdelatty discussed an initiative with Araghchi on Saturday to halt attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, acceptance by Riyadh or the Houthis unclear. What Cairo would send, per AP, is air defence systems and aircraft to Saudi territory and no ground troops to Yemen.

Tehran's contribution to the Egyptian debate was broadcast from Iraq. In an interview with Al Ekhbariya aired on Tuesday, Araghchi said Iran had received no response from Saudi Arabia or the Houthis to its offer to help broker talks, said "any foreign intervention would complicate matters," and added that Cairo had previously told Tehran it would "not directly" interfere in the Yemeni conflict; Baghaei said the same in Tehran, that Egyptian intervention "would not contribute to peace." The Saudi side of the week's diplomacy was Prince Faisal's calls on Monday with his Turkish and Emirati counterparts condemning the attacks, per SPA, and the Kuwaiti foreign minister's solidarity statement; no Saudi reply to the Iranian offer appears in any source fetched, which is itself the reply.

Brent rose $1.61 to $110.40 by 06:30 GMT on Wednesday, WTI $1.45 to $99.27, after a Tuesday that touched $111.75, the highest since May, and then gave it back when Pezeshkian discussed mediation with Pakistan's army chief in Tehran. By Tuesday night Munir had left with Iran's conditions restated and enriched material ruled out for transfer; Nournews said there would be no talks with Washington until the demands were met and that a Qatari delegation had arrived, neither officially confirmed. DBS's Suvro Sarkar called the sessions "a bit of wild ride," profit-taking and "optimistic hopes of a Qatar- or Pakistan-brokered deal, countered by the realisation that any deal is still very distant," on top of API data showing US crude down 4.9 million barrels in the week to October 16. Two Energy Department officials said on Tuesday they were working with refiners worldwide to boost diesel output.

The physical side moved out of the strait. Kpler counted at least 18 vessel attacks in two weeks; LSEG analysts warned Iran was targeting tankers beyond Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman, "jeopardising Gulf crude loadings and the ship-to-ship transfers supporting regional loadings." UKMTO said on Wednesday a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile near Bukha, Oman, with a fire later extinguished and all crew safe, no name or position given; the IRGC separately claimed a supertanker carrying more than 2 million barrels exploded after hitting a mine in the strait, a claim with no name and no independent substantiation in the sources fetched. On the Saudi side, the Houthi claims on Yanbu and Shaybah from Monday stand unconfirmed, and Cirium's count is that more than 45 percent of departures from the Kingdom's airports have been cancelled since October 8.

The Saudi index fell 1.7 percent, 172 points, to 9,952 on Tuesday, its lowest close since April 2021, in a range of 9,941 to 10,116 and on about SR3.8 billion of turnover; it is down about 540 points, 5.1 percent, on the year. Reuters attributes the fall to Maaden's 4.7 percent slide and Aramco's 1.2 percent decline; Asharq Al-Awsat has Aramco down 1 percent at SR25.48, Al Rajhi down 1 percent at SR60.15, Yansab down 7 percent, SABIC Agri-Nutrients down 3 percent to SR109.80 and Bank Albilad down 3 percent to SR21.47 after third-quarter results, Tihama the worst at minus 8 and Azm the best at plus 4. The trigger Reuters names is the Houthi claim on Monday to have hit an Aramco site in Yanbu, the Shaybah field and the Riyadh and Abha airports, which Saudi authorities did not confirm and Reuters could not verify; the day before, organisers had postponed FII to 2027 with a new date "very soon," after Semafor reported banks and private-equity firms privately relaying safety concerns to Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

The rest of the region priced the same day differently. Egypt's EGX30 rose 1.9 percent to 52,089, Talaat Moustafa up 4.2 percent, after parliament deferred the authorisation vote to October 26; Abu Dhabi closed 0.5 percent higher; Qatar fell 0.4 percent to 8,598, its lowest in more than six years, QNB down 0.7 percent; Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman were lower. Tickmill's Ranim Turfa: "the absence of diplomatic progress is fueling doubts over any quick de-escalation," though "economic resilience and robust business activity could limit the declines in some markets." Brent, meanwhile, was at $111.20 at 11:20 GMT, up 1.5 percent, which did nothing for Aramco.

Reuters carried the Cirium figure on Tuesday inside its markets report: more than 45 percent of departures from the Kingdom's airports have been cancelled since October 8, the day the Houthis began their strikes on King Khalid International. Against that, the organisers' Monday statement that FII, planned for October 26 to 29, would move to 2027 with a new date "very soon," and that they wanted the event to deliver "the full scale, extraordinary quality, and unforgettable impact that our community has come to expect." Reuters had reported earlier on Monday that the in-person event was scrapped, and last week that a hybrid format was being considered; Semafor reported that big banks and private-equity firms had privately relayed safety concerns to PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and that chief executives felt pressure to attend. The draft programme had listed Goldman Sachs's David Solomon, Standard Chartered's Bill Winters and Citi's Jane Fraser.

The two numbers belong together because the second follows from the first. A conference built on flying the world's capital into Riyadh for four days cannot be held when nearly half the flights out of the Kingdom are not operating, the US Mission tells its own staff not to use a Saudi airport without the ambassador's permission, and the capital's tallest tower has sent its tenants home. The Kingdom's economy in October is not the one the FDI release of Monday described; it is one in which the physical infrastructure of the investment pitch, the airport, the tower, the hall, is the target list.