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Conflict & Security39 outlets ran this3 min read

Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint Defence Agreement

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the appointment of the retired Lieutenant General.

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published
Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint Defence Agreement

What this story says

  • Lieutenant General (retd) Nauman Mahmood has been appointed as the first Secretary General of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA).
  • The appointment was announced by Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
  • The General Secretariat of the MJDA will be based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
  • The agreement establishes a framework for enhanced defence cooperation among Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye.

Who covered it

Left 23%(3)Centre 8%(1)Right 69%(9)

Percentages are shares of the 13 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 26 of the 39 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

72/100

Craft

62/100

Hype

15/100

39 sources · methodology

Missing from the left

Only 3 of the 13 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.

A reader who follows the left would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

Pakistan has appointed Lieutenant General (retd) Nauman Mahmood as the first Secretary General of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA). The announcement was made by Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The General Secretariat of the MJDA will be established in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Lt Gen Mahmood will lead this body. The appointment formalises the administrative leadership of the alliance, which aims to enhance defence cooperation among participating countries.

The MJDA was established as a trilateral security framework between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye. The agreement followed a meeting in Istanbul on August 31 where the foreign and defence ministers and military chiefs of the three nations agreed to establish a permanent secretariat in Riyadh. Pakistan is set to provide the first secretary general for an initial three-year term. The pact stipulates that an armed attack on any one of the three countries would be considered an attack on all three.

Name spelling

Reports differ on the spelling of the appointed official's surname. The Express Tribune and most other outlets spell the name as Nauman Mahmood. Mehr News Agency spells the name as Noman Mahmood.

What the coverage left out

None of the right-rated digests mention the specific date of the Istanbul meeting where the decision to establish the secretariat was made, which was reported by The Express Tribune as August 31.

Tags:#MakkahJointDefenceAgreement#NaumanMahmood#Pakistan#SaudiArabia#Turkiye#MiddleEastSecurity

Coverage settled. We checked this 9 times and stopped on 28 Sept 2026, 19:15. The figures above are what it finished at.

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

3 rated outlets

  • The left-rated report from CGTN led with the appointment of Nauman Mahmood as the first Secretary General of the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement. It stated that Pakistan appointed him to the role. The report did not include further details about the agreement or its implications.

Centre

1 rated outlet

  • The centre-rated report from The Express Tribune highlighted Lt Gen (retd) Nauman Mahmood's appointment as the first Secretary General of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA). It stated that the General Secretariat would be based in Riyadh and that the appointment marks the formal establishment of the MJDA's secretariat and its administrative leadership. The report also detailed the agreement's background, including a meeting in Istanbul on August 31 where the decision was made, and the pact's significance as a framework for collective deterrence and expanded defence cooperation among Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye.

Right

9 rated outlets

  • The right-rated reports from Anadolu Ajansı, ARY News, Geo News, and Mehr News Agency all focused on Pakistan's appointment of a retired general as the first Secretary General of the Makkah Pact or Agreement. Anadolu Ajansı noted that the trilateral agreement includes Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye and aims to strengthen collective deterrence. Mehr News Agency referred to the agreement as the Mecca Defense Agreement and spelled the appointee's name as Noman Mahmood.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint…?
Of the 13 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 23% are rated left, 8% are rated centre, 69% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 39. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint… left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 13 rated outlets on this story, 23% are rated left, 8% are rated centre, 69% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint… biased?
Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is one event reported by 39 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint…?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Nauman Mahmood appointed first Secretary General of Makkah Joint…?
39 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
Who has been appointed as the first Secretary General of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement?
Lieutenant General (retd) Nauman Mahmood has been appointed as the first Secretary General of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA). The announcement was made by Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Where will the General Secretariat of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement be based?
The General Secretariat of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement will be based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Lieutenant General Nauman Mahmood will lead this body.
What is the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement?
The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement is a trilateral security framework between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye. It aims to enhance defence cooperation, strengthen collective deterrence, and promote regional stability.

Read it at the source

39 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

3

Centre

1

Right

9
Show 1 more

Not rated

26
Show 18 more

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

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