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CNN International: Pakistan Confirms It Has Troops Stationed In Saudi Arabia; The Israeli Hostages Who Didn't Come Back Alive; USS Lincoln To Return To U.S. After Nearly Eleven Months At Sea. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired October 08, 2026 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Salma Abdelaziz. We have a CNN exclusive for you this hour. Saudi Arabia is getting support from two regional allies in its fight against Yemen's Houthi rebels. CNN Senior International Correspondent Ivan Watson has the story.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For the very first time, the Pakistani military has confirmed that it has forces on the ground in Saudi Arabia helping protect it from attacks coming from neighboring Yemen from the Houthi forces there. This was confirmed to me in an exclusive sit-down interview with the spokesperson for the Pakistani military.
AHMED SHARIF CHAUDHRY, DIR. GEN. INTER-SERVICES PUBLIC RELATIONS, PAKISTAN ARMED FORCES: I can do confirm that we, the forces of Pakistan, are already there. That I can share you and then --
WATSON: Pakistani troops, some kind of military personnel, are already on the ground in Saudi Arabia as part of the Mecca Alliance.
CHAUDHRY: So -- yeah, the Pakistani troops have been there for decades, and multiple capabilities have been there for decades in Saudi Arabia. As I said, that this Mecca Alliance is not something that has come out in vacuum. So, there is a sustained diplomatic, political, military relationship, people-to-people relationship between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. So, I can share with you that the Pakistani forces in multiple capabilities and domains are already there.
WATSON: What's remarkable about this announcement is the speed at which this brand-new collective security group, the Mecca Alliance, is coming together and becoming operational. It's just two months ago that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan announced the creation of the Mecca Alliance, and now just two months later, and two days after an emergency meeting in Riyadh in response to Houthi attacks on Saudi cities and infrastructure, you have the Pakistanis confirming they actually have boots on the ground that will commit to the defense of Saudi Arabia against this Houthi threat.
How many Pakistani forces? What exactly, they're doing? Could more Pakistani troops be on the way, and could they be involved in any operations across the Saudi border into Yemen?
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Well, the Pakistani Lieutenant General would not confirm or provide any additional details, saying that is all effectively classified. What he did stress multiple times was when it comes to the Mecca Alliance, an attack on one of the three countries is an attack on all. That's directly reminiscent of the language that has applied for generations for the NATO military alliance.
So, there's an important message being sent that in just two months, a new collective security group has come together involving Turkey, a NATO military, Saudi Arabia with its vast oil wealth, and now Pakistan, which is armed with nuclear weapons, declaring their vows to defend each other against threats, and now apparently that being put to the test in the face of the rapidly escalating conflict in Yemen, that's also spilling across the border into Saudi Arabia. Ivan Watson, CNN, Islamabad.
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ABDELAZIZ: Just over three years ago, on October 7, 2023, Israel faced its deadliest day in history. More than 1,200 people were killed in that Hamas terror attack, and 251 hostages were taken into Gaza by the militants. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken credit for bringing back every last hostage, but 40 of them did not come back alive. CNN's Jeremy Diamond has their stories and a warning. Some of the images you are about to see here are deeply disturbing.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They were kidnapped from a music festival, dragged from their homes, forced at gunpoint into trucks. The Hamas-led October 7 attack was the deadliest day in Israel's history, with more than 1,200 killed, and by the end of the day, 251 people were hostages in Gaza.
It took more than two years before they were all released, most in ceasefire deals. Israel's Prime Minister, who is facing elections this month, has repeatedly taken credit for that outcome.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We brought back every last one of them.
DIAMOND: But his statements don't account for this brutal reality. Of the hostages who were taken into Gaza alive, one in five died or were killed in captivity. Hostages like Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American Israeli.
RACHEL GOLDBERG-POLIN, MOTHER OF HOSTAGE KILLED IN GAZA: We hear some leaders, some leaders saying we got all the hostages home, and I just came from my home. Hersh never came back to my home. Like, please don't say that you brought him home, anyone.
DIAMOND: We spoke to dozens of hostage families and Israeli military and government officials to piece together what happened to these 40 hostages. Five died in captivity from their wounds or due to a lack of care, including Odette Lifshitz, an 83-year-old journalist and peace activist. 11 were killed by Israeli strikes or ground operations, including these three young men who were shot dead by Israeli ground troops who mistook them for Palestinians.
Nearly half of the hostages were killed by their captors, according to the Israeli military and forensic evidence reviewed by their families. Nine-month-old Kfir and four-year-old Ariel were killed by their captors' quote bare hands. The cause of death of eight others is still unconfirmed, including these six hostages who were killed in a tunnel in Khan Yunis following an Israeli strike nearby.
They are among 24, more than half whose deaths we trace back to Israeli military actions, including Israeli strikes and ground maneuvers that prompted captors to kill their hostages. The Israeli military's hostage task force worked to keep the hostages alive and secure their release.
BRIG. GEN OREN SETTER (RET), FMR DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ISRAEL MILITARY HOSTAGE TASK FORCE: Each and every operation was carried out only after people from the hostages' unit have assessed the risk to hostages. Operations got canceled. Operations were changed because of that.
DIAMOND: Israel had laid out two main war objectives, releasing the hostages, but first and foremost destroying Hamas's military and governing capabilities. Do you see those two objectives as having been in conflict with one another?
SETTER: They have been in, I'd say, very strong tension. Military pressure is necessary, and it entails risks. We could see very vividly how, when Hamas felt under pressure, it was more flexible in the negotiations, and vice versa.
DIAMOND: But Setter said it was clear which goal was a priority.
NETANYAHU: Tonight, I want to speak to you about total victory. Total victory. There is no substitute for it.
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DIAMOND: Alexander Dancyg, a Polish-born Holocaust historian, was one of six hostages killed in that Khan Yunis tunnel in February 2024. Bullet wounds suggest they were shot by their captors after Israel struck a nearby tunnel, but they may have also been killed by the bomb's toxic gasses, like their captors.
YUVAL DANCYG, FATHER WAS KILLED IN GAZA: They told us no one can, you know, can survive from this -- from this air strike.
DIAMOND: Who do you hold responsible for your father's death? DANCYG: My government. The -- the ones that responsible for what
happened to them, first of all, is Hamas. But from what happened later, my government.
DIAMOND: The Israeli military's chief of staff at the time, Herzi Halevi, told Yuval the strike was a mistake and took responsibility.
DANCYG: But when you have a war with citizens underground and you decide that the war is the most important things, it's possible that hostages will -- will get killed.
DIAMOND: Amid protests here at Hostage Square, Israel and Hamas were on the verge of an agreement in July 2024 when suddenly the Israeli Prime Minister issued a new demand that Israeli troops remain along the Gaza-Egypt border.
SETTER: We knew that the price could be the life of hostages, and the fact that it materialized in such a painful and almost immediate way after the crisis negotiations is just made it more -- even more tragic.
DIAMOND: In late August, Hamas executed six hostages, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, after Israeli troops operating in that tunnel system unknowingly closed in on their location. Hersh and four others from that tunnel would have been released as part of that July framework agreement, according to Israeli officials. But that deal wasn't signed until January. The terms nearly identical. Was that delay worth it?
SETTER: In my personal judgment, it was not worth it. Given that the current situation is that Hamas has not been fully defeated and is still governing at least a part of Gaza, realistically, I think the war could have ended the beginning of 2025.
GOLDBERG-POLIN: For me, pointing fingers and blaming doesn't bring Hersh back, and doesn't ease my pain, and so I think of it as I -- I live in a cage of suffering, and I'm trapped in this cage, and it's where I live. So that's how I am.
DIAMOND: Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem.
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ABDELAZIZ: Here in the U.K., a court hearing will be held after King Charles' younger brother challenged the legality of police search warrants issued before his arrest earlier this year. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has asked for a judge to determine if actions taken against him by the police in Central Criminal Court were lawful. He was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
This is following revelations from the Epstein files in the United States. A royal source says the palace has no role in determining Mountbatten-Windsor's strategy.
After being deployed for nearly 11 months, the USS Abraham Lincoln will soon be home. What the crew is saying about their long-awaited return. That's coming up.
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ABDELAZIZ: Welcome back. After a record-setting deployment, the USS Abraham Lincoln is almost home. The carrier will dock in Coronado, California, later today. This is after nearly 11 months at sea, including more than eight months without a port call. The deployment included operations against Iran. Now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the strike group received the Presidential Unit citation.
This is the U.S. military's highest unit award for collective heroism in action. But the long deployment raised concerns about morale and mental health among the crew. Here's what Hegseth said about those issues.
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PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: There were a few folks in the media who tried to turn the USS Abraham Lincoln into some sort of a symbol, a symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale, or a symbol of a failed mission. And what I look out at right here, and what I talk to your leadership, and I have had a chance to talk to a number of you, I know it's the exact opposite.
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ABDELAZIZ: There were also reports of issues with supplies and living conditions aboard the Lincoln. The ship had the second longest Navy aircraft carrier deployment since the Vietnam War. CNN's Pamela Brown has reported on those concerns aboard the Lincoln earlier this year, and she was on board again to report on their last day at sea. Here's what she had to say about the mood on the aircraft carrier now.
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PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're back here on the USS Abraham Lincoln a day before it returns home for a very big homecoming. There's been so much anticipation for this because this aircraft carrier set a modern-day record for its deployment for the most consecutive days at sea, and you can see right here behind me they're starting to decorate here.
You see some of the sailors up there. They're putting up banners and other types of decorations. They know their family members are waiting for them to come home. This ship and its crew, they've really been pushed to the brink in this war.
Of course, you know there's been reporting about low morale. There was a man overboard here just this last August, and another attempted overboard and earlier, and the conditions have really been in the spotlight as well. With some of the sailors complaining of overflowing toilets and not having hot water, for example.
I've been talking to some of the sailors, and they say the biggest issue is just the uncertainty of just having this deployment delayed so many times, and so the fact that they're going to be home tomorrow to reunite with their family is just giving them so much hope, so much to look forward to. In fact, we're already seeing some of those reunions.
Lieutenant Commander Jason Tross joined us, the media on the Osprey to come here to the ship to surprise his daughter Hannah. It was her first deployment, and she told me that she was just -- didn't have words to talk about what it meant to her to see her father after being on this ship for her first deployment for so long. They both cried. It was very emotional.
That's just a little preview of what's to come here. And we also have been talking to sailors who have had some very important jobs here, like you, sir. Tell -- tell us your name and what your job has been here on board.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm AV3 Lawson Tyler (ph). My job here was working with the CAC Crews in the waste, and then handling our supply for our aviation department.
BROWN: What's it been like on this deployment? What have been the biggest challenges for you?
UNIDENTIFED MALE: Definitely not getting like showers, stuff like that. Working all day and night and not being clean was definitely probably the hardest part.
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BROWN: And you said that this was long overdue to be --
UNIDENTIFED MALE: Oh, definitely long overdue. Not knowing when we were going to come back definitely weighed heavily on us, both me and all the people that I know.
BROWN: What do you want Americans to know about your work out here and everyone else here on this ship and everything you've had to endure these last almost a year?
UNIDENTIFED MALE: That all of us are definitely resilient, whether we want -- want to be or not. We definitely push through, and whether or not if you agree with why we're out here, I'm still proud of every person that did it on this boat.
BROWN: Yeah. What is the feeling like right now, just a day before seeing your family?
UNIDENTIFED MALE: Just honestly, all the tension coming off my shoulders. It's been feeling like they're carrying bags of bricks every day, trying to trudge up these stairwells and go back down them every day. It's --
BROWN: It's a lot. Even just being on here for a short time, I can -- I can understand that.
UNIDENTIFED MALE: Yeah.
BROWN: Well, thank you for all of the work you did, all of your service and sacrifice. Really, really, really appreciate it.
So, you can just tell just from that one conversation, the tension is really lifting here on the ship. The live operations are done, and everyone is ready to go home. Pamela Brown, CNN, USS Abraham Lincoln.
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ABDELAZIZ: We'll be right back after a quick break.
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ABDELAZIZ: Welcome back. After nearly 10 months in space, four astronauts are heading home. NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 is expected to splash down today. The crew includes two Americans, one European, and a Russian cosmonaut. Their replacements, Crew-13, are already aboard the International Space Station, having arrived last week.
President Trump is expected to award the National Medal of Science to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and other tech leaders today. The medals will be presented during a White House Summit on Changing Technologies, including what the administration now calls Super Intelligence or A.I.
The White House will also award medals to Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and AMD CEO Lisa Su, Dell Founder Michael Dell, and Microsoft Chairman Satya Nadella will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
We're getting a first look at Ping Ping, the male half of the giant panda pair now in the U.S. on loan from the Chinese government. Last week we saw the female panda for the first time. The public will be able to see them at Zoo Atlanta starting on November 6.
That is the opening day for the new giant panda habitat. It has been expanded and upgraded to include new climbing structures and a pool in each day room. What luxury.
Thank you so much for watching. I'm Salma Abdelaziz. CNN Headline Express is coming up next.
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