The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => History => Topic started by: TomSea on May 03, 2019, 11:27:35 pm
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Apparently, Saudi Arabia has currently airing, a TV soap opera that treats the 1970s. It's in its second season and it is treating the "Great Mosque Seizure": https://www.albawaba.com/node/mbc-series-1979-ground-mosque-attack-creates-havoc-saudi-arabia-1283396 (https://www.albawaba.com/node/mbc-series-1979-ground-mosque-attack-creates-havoc-saudi-arabia-1283396)
(https://www.albawaba.com/sites/default/files/styles/de2e_standard/public/im_new/randa.darwish/1310596-1422302742.jpg?h=01cd1da7&itok=Cv9-KacD)
Smoke rises during fighting on Nov. 20, 1979, after a group seized the Holy Mosque. Right: The mastermind of the attack, Juhayman Al-Otaibi. (AFP)
Excerpted:
1979: Remembering 'The Siege Of Mecca'
August 20, 20096:00 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
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We've been discussing some of those events this week: Iran's revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the hanging of a Pakistani leader. The 1979 attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca was less well known and less understood, but no less significant.
It was a blow to the Saudi monarchy and an influence on the thinking of a young man named Osama bin Laden. Wall Street Journal reporter Yaroslav Trofimov wrote a book about a tragedy that began as a day of celebration.
Mr. YAROSLAV TROFIMOV (Reporter, Wall Street Journal): About 100,000 people appeared in the Grand Mosque of Mecca for the dawn prayer. What they didn't know was that all of them would become hostages within minutes of the prayer beginning. A group of jihadis, several hundred jihadis, from Saudi Arabia, from Egypt, but also some Americans and Canadians - converts to Islam - had entered the mosque with weapons, overpowered the guards, shut down the gates and proclaimed the arrival of the savior, the Mahdi, that would cleanse the Muslim world from its impurities brought in by the Westerners.
Read more at: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112051155 (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112051155)
So, the next time you discuss the ME with someone, one can mention "oh, the great Mosque seizure of 1979" and impress people with your knowledge, that's the same year as the Iranian hostage drama I believe as well.
This above seems to be a beef with them, Westerners and Western influence being over there. By all means, stay out of there.
333cleo
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure
One of the articles says the siege last 2 weeks, that there was a news blackout.
Imagine doing that today, I don't think one could. I had never heard of this incident.