1979: Remembering ‘The Siege Of Mecca’

August 20, 20096:00 AM ETHeard on  Morning Edition

Yaroslav Trofimov, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, talks about the 1979 siege of the Grand Mosque at Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

It is the holiest site in Islam, and gunmen held it for two weeks. It was one of the events that gave rise to al-Qaida, and Yaroslav wrote about it in his book The Siege of Mecca.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112051155&t=1614437612378