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The Siege of Mecca: The 1979 Uprising at Islam’s Holiest Shrine PDF

303 Pages·2007·2.66 MB·English
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CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Cast of Principal Characters A Note on Arab Names Plan of the Grand Mosque Introduction CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN PHOTO INSERT CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Epilogue A Note to Readers Acknowledgments Notes and Sources Also by Yaroslav Trofimov Copyright To Nicole, Jonathan, and Susi, with love Cast of Principal Characters (Positions as held in 1979) SAUDI ARABIA Prince Abdullah: Commander of the Saudi National Guard. Prince Bandar bin Sultan: Son of Prince Sultan, future Saudi ambassador in Washington. Abdelaziz Bin Baz: Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Department of Scientific Research and Guidance, a ministerial-level clerical body in charge of interpreting Islamic law. Salem Bin Laden: Head of the Bin Laden construction company that expanded the Grand Mosque in Mecca; Osama Bin Laden’s brother. Brigadier-General Faleh al Dhaheri: Commander of the Saudi Army’s King Abdelaziz Armored Brigade. Mohammed Elias: A senior Egyptian preacher who participated in the Mecca uprising. Crown Prince Fahd: Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler. Faisal Mohammed Faisal: One of the most senior Saudi leaders of the Mecca uprising. Colonel Nasser al Homaid: Commander of the Saudi Army’s Sixth Paratroop Battalion. Nasser Ibn Rashed: Most senior cleric in charge of the Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina. Mohammed Ibn Subeil: Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and Ibn Rashed’s deputy. King Khaled: King of Saudi Arabia. Prince Nayef: Minister of the interior of Saudi Arabia. Major Mohammed Zuweid al Nefai: Operations officer of the Saudi Interior Ministry Special Security Force. Mohammed Abdullah al Qahtani: Juhayman al Uteybi’s brother-in-law and the alleged Mahdi. Lieutenant Abdulaziz Qudheibi: Platoon commander of the Sixth Paratroop Battalion. Hassan al Saffar: Religious leader of Saudi Shiites in the Eastern Province. Prince Sultan: Minister of defense and aviation of Saudi Arabia. Prince Turki al Faisal: Chief of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate. Juhayman bin Seif al Uteybi: retired corporal in the Saudi National Guard and chief leader of the Mecca uprising. Ahmed Zaki Yamani: Saudi Arabia’s minister of oil. Mohammed Abduh Yamani: Saudi Arabia’s minister of information. UNITED STATES Zbigniew Brzezinski: President Carter’s national security adviser. President Jimmy Carter: President of the United States of America. Herbert Hagerty: Chief political officer at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. Mark Hambley: Political officer at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. Ralph Lindstrom: U.S. consul general in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Jack McCavitt: Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Tripoli, Libya. Cyrus Vance: U.S. secretary of state. Ambassador John C. West: U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. FRANCE Captain Paul Barril: Deputy commander of the French commando unit Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN). Head of the GIGN mission dispatched to Saudi Arabia during the Mecca uprising. President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing: President of the French Republic. Count Alexandre de Marenches: Head of French intelligence agency Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionage (SDECE). Christian Lambert: Member of the GIGN mission dispatched to Saudi Arabia. Captain Christian Prouteau: Commander of the GIGN. Ignace Wodecki: Member of the GIGN mission dispatched to Saudi Arabia. OTHER COUNTRIES Mehmet Ali Agca: Turkish militant who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Leonid Brezhnev: Leader of the Soviet Union. Colonel Moammar Ghadhafi: Revolutionary leader of Libya. Babrak Karmal: Soviet-installed leader of Afghanistan. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: Leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. General Mohammed Zia ul Haq: President of Pakistan. A Note on Arab Names N ames in Arabia usually consist of four parts: the given name and the names of the father, of the grandfather, and of the tribe or family. They are separated by the prepositions “bin,” “ibn,” or “al,” which usually, but not always, mean “son of.” Mohammed bin Abdullah, Mohammed al Abdullah, Mohammed ibn Abdullah, and the preposition-less Mohammed Abdullah are different ways of identifying the same person, Abdullah’s son Mohammed. Abdullah in this example could also be known simply as Abu Mohammed, with “abu” the Arabic for “father.” As it would be too unwieldy to use the full Arabic names throughout the book, I followed the common usage, which, sometimes without much logic, varies from case to case. On some occasions, this meant employing just the first two parts of a name; on others, the first and the last. Spellings were simplified to make proper names more easily recognizable to non-Arab readers.

Description:
In The Siege of Mecca, acclaimed journalist Yaroslav Trofimov pulls back the curtain on a thrilling, pivotal, and overlooked episode of modern history, examining its repercussions on the Middle East and the world.On November 20, 1979, worldwide attention was focused on Tehran, where the Iranian host
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.