Siege of Khartoum currency to the post of Governor-general in January 1884 and arrived at Khartoum on 18 February 1884, less than one month prior to the siege. Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, self-proclaimed Mahdi, engaged in an 18-year Mahdist War (1881–99) against the British Empire (Khedivate of Egypt), the Ethiopian Empire, the Congo Free State, and the Kingdom of Italy. In a series of telegrams in early March, 1884, Gordon informed the British government that the Mahdi were closing the roads, cutting off supplies and severing telegraph communications. As the fighting drew closer to the city walls, and the blockade tightened, the siege
Attack on the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum for trying Arafat, as the appropriate statutory laws were not yet in force in 1973. Attack on the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum Carried out by the Black September Organization in 1973, the attack on the Saudi embassy in Khartoum was a terrorist attack which took ten diplomats hostage. After President Richard Nixon stated that he refused to negotiate with terrorists, and insisted that "no concessions" would be made, the three Western hostages were killed. On March 1, 1973, the Saudi embassy in Khartoum was giving a formal reception, and George Curtis Moore, chargé d'affaires at the American embassy, was the