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Days after FM al-Shaibani confirmed Damascus is evaluating entry into the Mecca Alliance (the Saudi-Türkiye-Pakistan mutual-defense pact treating an attack on one as an attack on all), Syria’s Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra hosted Pakistan’s military attaché to Damascus/Baghdad, Brig. Irfan Maqbool Ahmed, to discuss expanding military cooperation. This is more than routine protocol. Pakistan is a founding member of the pact, its only nuclear power, and the state supplying the alliance’s first secretary-general. Hosting its attaché so soon after the public signal looks like practical groundwork building the bilateral channels (training, intelligence, interoperability) needed if Syria actually joins or seeks the pact’s deterrent cover. For post-Assad Syria, still rebuilding a fragmented force and facing Israeli strikes in the south, the Mecca framework offers a potential Sunni security umbrella anchored in Riyadh’s political weight, Ankara’s operational experience, and Islamabad’s hard power. The meeting suggests Damascus is testing how far that umbrella can extend.