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Title details for The Siege of Mecca by Yaroslav Trofimov - Available

The Siege of Mecca

The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda

by Yaroslav Trofimov
Todd McLaren
Audiobook
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On November 20, 1979, worldwide attention was focused on Tehran, where the Iranian hostage crisis was entering its third week. The same morning—the first of a new Muslim century—hundreds of gunmen stunned the world by seizing Islam's holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Armed with rifles that they had smuggled inside coffins, these men came from more than a dozen countries, launching the first operation of global jihad in modern times. Led by a Saudi preacher named Juhayman al Uteybi, they believed that the Saudi royal family had become a craven servant of American infidels and sought a return to the glory of uncompromising Islam. With nearly 100,000 worshippers trapped inside the holy compound, Mecca's bloody siege lasted two weeks, inflaming Muslim rage against the United States and causing hundreds of deaths.


Despite U.S. assistance, the Saudi royal family proved haplessly incapable of dislodging the occupier, whose ranks included American converts to Islam. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini blamed the Great Satan—the United States—for defiling the shrine, prompting mobs to storm and torch American embassies in Pakistan and Libya. The desperate Saudis finally enlisted the help of French commandos led by Captain Paul Barril, who prepared the final assault and supplied the poison gas that knocked out the insurgents. Though most captured gunmen were quickly beheaded, the Saudi royal family responded to this unprecedented challenge by compromising with the rebels' supporters among the kingdom's most senior clerics, helping them nurture and export Juhayman's violent brand of Islam around the world.


This dramatic and immensely consequential story was barely covered in the press in the pre-CNN, pre–Al Jazeera days, as Saudi Arabia imposed an information blackout and kept foreign correspondents away. Yaroslav Trofimov now penetrates this veil of silence, interviewing for the first time scores of direct participants in the siege, including former terrorists, and drawing on hundreds of documents that were declassified upon his request. Written with the pacing, detail, and suspense of a real-life thriller, The Siege of Mecca reveals how Saudi reaction to the uprising in Mecca set free the forces that produced the attacks of 9/11 and the harrowing circumstances that surround us today.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 2, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400125340
      • File size: 236007 KB
      • Duration: 08:11:40

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The author examines the largely unreported takeover of the Grand Mosque by Muslim fundamentalists in 1979, which saw hundreds of deaths and the emergence of ill-will towards the United States. Trofimov's descriptions of the events lie somewhere between real-life tragedy and political thriller. The story is expertly realized by narrator Todd McLaren's clear elocution and well-paced reading, which captures the mounting tension of the harrowing event. Though McLaren opts not to employ a variety of tones and accents to represent the large cast, his firm understanding and pronunciation of Islamic phrases bring an air of authenticity to the story. With Trofimov's journalistic background, McLaren's narration often sounds like a documentary report, but the material is so fascinating that listeners will remained thoroughly engaged. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 4, 2007
      Trofimov, a Wall Street Journal
      writer and observer of the Muslim world (Faith at War
      ), tackles an incident unreported in the West: the violent takeover of Islam's holiest shrine by Muslim fundamentalists in 1979. Carrying out his investigations in one of the world's most closed societies, Trofimov has crafted a compelling historical narrative, blending messianic theology with righteous violence, and the Saudi state's sclerotic corruption with the complicity of the official religious institutions. Trofimov aptly points out endemic regional problems with enduring repercussions for fighting terror, but is hampered by his sensationalist style (“The world was twelve months away from the tumultuous events that would cover the mosque's marble courtyard with blood, spilled guts and severed limbs”). In 1979, the Saudi intelligence services apparently had no accurate blueprints of the Grand Mosque, and knew nothing of the underground labyrinth where many of the militants took shelter; they eventually received plans to the site from Osama bin Laden's older brother. Ringleader Juhayman and his followers have inspired al-Qaeda and countless other Islamic revivalist movements to ever greater acts of violence, even though they were mesmerized by their limited understanding of an obscurantist theology and were convinced that that one of their unassuming members was the Messiah. Casual readers will be well served by this introduction to Muslim fundamentalist terrorism.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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