BBC Arabic: documentary about the occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 (video)

A documentary by BBC Arabic looks back at the invasion of the Masjid al-Haram mosque in 1979 with previously unpublished testimonies.

On 20 november 1979 attacked a group of about 250 men, led by Juhayman Al Utaybi, a retired corporal of the Saudi National Guard, the great mosque inside. Al Utaybi wanted to overthrow the regime of Saudi Arabia articles and suggested that the ' Mahdi ', in the person of Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani, one of the leaders as well as his brother-in-law, had come.

Only after almost 2 weeks I managed the Saudi troops to regain control of the holy place. The collision resulted according to official figures by the Saudi authorities in a total of 270 deaths, including 127 soldiers. Further there were 560 wounded. According to diplomats, the actual death toll much higher, probably in the neighborhood of the thousand.

Al-Utaybi and 62 other prisoners were beheaded in Saudi Arabia (39 Saudis, 10 Egyptians, 6 Yemenis and a few Kuwaitis, Iraqis and Sudanese).

Are you the Arabic language not powerful, but would you want to know more about this topic, we recommend the book "the siege of Mecca ' of the writer Yaraslov Trofimov.

[video = youtube; hXDQSsLx8qQ] https://www.youtube.com/watch? v = hXDQSsLx8qQ [/video]

mecca
siege
bbc
documentary