''The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda'' is a 2007 book by

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

correspondent

Yaroslav Trofimov Yaroslav Trofimov is a Ukrainian-born Italian author and journalist who serves as chief foreign-affairs correspondent at ''The Wall Street Journal''. Previously he wrote a weekly column on the Greater Middle East, Middle East Crossroads, in ''The ...

about the 1979

Grand Mosque seizure The Grand Mosque seizure lasted from 20 November 1979 to 4 December 1979, when extremist militants in Saudi Arabia calling for the overthrow of the House of Saud besieged and took over Masjid al-Haram, the holiest Islamic site, in the city of M ...

in Mecca. Hundreds of Islamic radicals led by Saudi preacher

Juhayman al-Otaybi Juhayman ibn Muhammad ibn Sayf al-Otaybi ( ar, جهيمان بن محمد بن سيف العتيبي; 16 September 1936 – 9 January 1980), was a Saudi Arabia, Saudi terrorist and soldier who in 1979 led the Grand Mosque seizure, seizure of the G ...

invaded the

Masjid al-Haram , native_name_lang = ar , religious_affiliation = Islam , image = Al-Haram mosque - Flickr - Al Jazeera English.jpg , image_upright = 1.25 , caption = Aerial view of the Great Mosque of Mecca , map ...

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...

, Islam's holiest shrine, on Nov. 20, 1979. The intruders included men from all over the Muslim world and a handful of American converts. Tens of thousands of worshipers were trapped inside the compound. The battle for the shrine lasted two weeks, causing hundreds of deaths and ending only after the intervention of Saudi National Guard and French Special Forces.

's book provides the first detailed account of this siege. The book is based on interviews with surviving participants and eyewitnesses, including former terrorist supporters of Juhayman al-Otaybi, as well as hundreds of declassified U.S., British and French government documents.

References

''Publishers Weekly'' review of Siege of MeccaSiege of Mecca websiteJerusalem Post review of The Siege of Mecca
{{DEFAULTSORT:Siege of Mecca, The 2007 non-fiction books History books about Saudi Arabia Books about al-Qaeda Doubleday (publisher) books History of Mecca