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 the "Hollow of Mecca". The area contains the valley of Al Taneem, the Valley of Bakkah and the valley of Abqar. This mountainous location has defined the contemporary expansion of the city. The city centers on the Masjid al-Haram area, which is lower than most of the city. The area around the mosque is the old city. The main avenues are "Al-Mudda'ah" and "Sūq al-Layl" to the north of the mosque, and "As-Sūg Assaghīr" to the south. As the Saudis expanded the Grand Mosque in the center of the city, hundreds of houses were replaced by wide avenues and city