The Siege of Mecca deaths and ending only after the intervention of Saudi National Guard and Special Forces. Yaroslav Trofimov'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. The Siege of Mecca 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 correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov about the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca. Hundreds of Islamic radicals led
Mecca invasion of Mecca. The reference to the story in Qur'an is rather short. According to the Surah of Al-Fil, the next day, [as Abraha prepared to enter the city], a dark cloud of small birds sent by Allah appeared. The birds carried small rocks in their beaks, and bombarded the Ethiopian forces and smashed them like "eaten straw". Camel caravans, said to have first been used by Muhammad's great-grandfather, were a major part of Mecca's bustling economy. Alliances were struck between the merchants in Mecca and the local nomadic tribes, who would bring goods – leather, livestock, and metals mined