The Grand Mosque Seizure on
20 November 1979, was an armed attack and takeover of the Al-Masjid al-Haram in
Makkah, Saudi Arabia, the holiest place in Islam by Islamist dissidents. The
insurgents declared that the Mahdi, or redeemer of Islam, had arrived in the
form of one of the insurgent leaders, Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani, and called
on Muslims to obey him.
The seizure shocked the Islamic
world as hundreds of pilgrims present for the annual hajj were taken hostage,
and hundreds of militants, security forces and hostages caught in crossfire
were killed in the ensuing battles for control of the site. The siege ended two
weeks after the takeover began with militants and the mosque was cleared.[4]
Following the attack, the Saudi state implemented stricter enforcement of
Islamic code.[5]
Background
The seizure was led by Juhayman
al-Otaybi, who belonged to a powerful family of Najd. He declared his
brother-in-law Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani to be the Mahdi, or redeemer. His
followers took that the fact that Al-Qahtani's name and his father's name are
identical to Muhammad's name and that of his father, and the saying ("His
and his father's names were the same as Muhammad's and his father's, and he had
come to Mecca from the north") to justify their belief. Furthermore, the
date of the attack, 20 November 1979, was the first day of the year 1400
according to the Islamic calendar, which was stated by another hadith as the
day that the Mahdi would reveal himself.[6]
 |
| Juhayman
al-Otaybi |
Juhayman al-Otaybi was from
"one of the foremost families of Najd. His grandfather had ridden with Ibn
Saud in the early decades of the century."[7] He was a
preacher, a former corporal in the Saudi National Guard, and a former student
of Sheikh Abdel Aziz al Baaz, who went on to become the Grand Mufti of Saudi
Arabia. Juhaiman had turned against al Baz, "and began advocating a return
to the original ways of Islam, among other things; a repudiation of the West;
an end of education of women; abolition of television and expulsion of
non-Muslims."[8] He proclaimed that "the ruling Al Saud
dynasty had lost its legitimacy because it was corrupt, ostentatious and had
destroyed Saudi culture by an aggressive policy of Westernization."[7]
Al-Otaybi and Qahtani had met while
being imprisoned together for sedition, when al-Otaybi claimed to have a vision
sent by God telling him that Qahtani was the Mahdi. Their declared goal was to
institute a theocracy in preparation for the imminent apocalypse. Many of their
followers were drawn from theology students at the Islamic University in Medina.
Other followers came from Egypt, Yemen, Kuwait, and Iraq, and also included
some Sudanese black African Muslims. The followers preached their radical
message in different mosques in Saudi Arabia without being arrested.[9]
The government was reluctant to confront religious extremists. Members of the ulema
cross-examined Otaibi and Qahtani for heresy, but they were subsequently released
as being traditionalists harkening back to the Ikhwan, like al-Otaybi's
grandfather, and not a threat.[10]
Because of donations from wealthy
followers, the group was well-armed and trained. Some members, like al-Otaybi,
were former military officials of the National Guard.[11] Some
National Guard troops sympathetic to the insurgents smuggled weapons,
ammunition, gas masks, and provisions into the mosque compound over a period of
weeks before the new year.[12] Automatic weapons were stolen from
National Guard armories, and the supplies were hidden in the hundreds of tiny
underground rooms under the mosque that were used as hermitages.[13]
Seizure
In the early morning of 20 November
1979, the imam of the Grand Mosque, Sheikh Mohammed al-Subayil, was preparing
to lead the prayers for the fifty thousand worshipers who had gathered for
prayer. Around 5:00 am, he was interrupted by insurgents who procured weapons
from under their robes, chained the gates shut and killed two policemen who
were armed with only wooden clubs for disciplining unruly pilgrims.[14]
The number of insurgents has been given as "at least 500" and
"four to five hundred", which included several women and children who
had joined al-Otaybi's movement.
At the time, the Grand Mosque was
being renovated. An employee of the organization was able to report the seizure
to outside before the insurgents cut the telephone lines.
The insurgents released most of the
hostages and locked the remainder in the sanctuary. They took defensive positions
in the upper levels of the mosque, and sniper positions in the minarets, from
which they commanded the grounds. No one outside the mosque knew how many
hostages remained, how many militants were in the mosque and what sort of
preparations they had made.
At the time of the event, Crown
Prince Fahd was in Tunisia for a meeting of the Arab Summit and then commander
of National Guard Prince Abdullah was in Morocco for an official visit.
Therefore, King Khalid assigned the responsibility to Prince Sultan, then
Minister of Defense and Prince Nayef, then Minister of Interior, to deal with
the incident.[15]
The surviving insurgents under
custody of Saudi Authorities. c. 1980.
Soon after the rebel seizure, about
a hundred security officers of the Ministry of Interior attempted to retake the
mosque, and were decisively turned back with heavy casualties. The survivors
were quickly joined by units of the Saudi Arabian Army and Saudi Arabian
National Guard.
By the evening, the entire city of
Mecca had been evacuated. Prince Sultan appointed Turki bin Faisal Al Saud,
then head of the Al Mukhabaraat Al 'Aammah (Saudi Intelligence), to take over
the forward command post several hundred metres from the mosque, where Prince
Turki would remain for the next several weeks. However, the first order of
business was to seek the approval of the ulema, which was led by Abdul Aziz bin
Baz. Islam forbids any violence within the Grand Mosque, to the extent that
plants cannot be uprooted without explicit religious sanction. Ibn Baaz found
himself in a delicate situation, especially as he had previously taught
al-Otaybi in Medina. Regardless, the ulema issued a fatwa allowing deadly force
to be used in retaking the mosque.[16]
With religious approval granted,
Saudi forces launched frontal assaults on three of the main gates. The
assaulting force was repulsed, and never even got close to breaking through the
insurgents' defences. Snipers continued to pick off soldiers who showed
themselves. The mosque's public address system was used to broadcast the
insurgents' message throughout the streets of Mecca.
An elite unit of the SSG, the
commando unit of the Pakistan Army was mobilized and SSG commandos were rushed
to Mecca from Pakistan on Saudi Government's request.[1] In the
middle of the day, Saudi troops abseiled from helicopters directly into the
central courtyard of the mosque. The soldiers were picked off by insurgents
holding superior positions.[17]
The insurgents aired their demands
from the mosque's loudspeakers, calling for the cutoff of oil exports to the United
States and the expulsion of all foreign civilian and military experts from the Arabian
Peninsula.[18] On 25 November, the Arab Socialist Action Party –
Arabian Peninsula issued a statement from Beirut alleging to clarify the demands
of the insurgents. The party, however, denied any involvement of its own in the
seizure.[19]
Officially, the Saudi government
took the position of not aggressively taking the mosque, but rather to starve
the militants. Nevertheless, several unsuccessful assaults were undertaken, at
least one of them through the underground tunnels in and around the mosque.[20]
By 27 November, most of the mosque
was retaken by the Saudi National Guard and the Army, though they suffered
heavy casualties in the assault. In the catacombs under the mosque, however,
several militants continued to resist and tear gas was used to force them out.[21]
Several of the top militants escaped the siege [22] and days later
sporadic fighting erupted in other parts of the city in trying to capture them.
The battle had lasted more than two
weeks, and had officially left "255 pilgrims, troops and fanatics"
killed and "another 560 injured ... although diplomats suggested the toll
was higher."[citation needed] Military casualties were
127 dead and 451 injured.[23]
Aftermath
In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini told
radio listeners, "It is not beyond guessing that this is the work of
criminal American imperialism and international Zionism."
Anti-American demonstrations
followed in the Philippines, Turkey, Bangladesh, eastern Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates and Pakistan. Anger fueled by these rumours peaked within hours
in Islamabad, Pakistan, and on 21 November 1979, the day following the
takeover, the U.S. embassy in that city was overrun by a mob, who then burned the
embassy to the ground. A week later, this anger swept to the streets of Tripoli,
Libya, where a mob attacked and burned the U.S. embassy there on 2 December
1979.
Sandra Mackey, author of The
Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom, said that "in choosing the Grand Mosque
as the point of attack, the rebels seized the symbol of the theocracy presided
over by the House of Saud. But by failing the attack, the rebels sealed their
own fate and gave the al-Sauds carte blanche to carry out public executions for
religious transgressions that were in reality crimes of politics." The
rebels' leader, Juhayman, was captured, and he and 67 of his fellow rebels –
"all the surviving males" – were tried secretly, convicted and
publicly beheaded in the squares of four Saudi cities.[7] In fact,
63 rebels were executed on 9 January 1980 in eight Saudi cities.[29]
The executions were decreed by King Khalid after the edict issued by ulemas.[29]
The cities and towns included Buraidah, Dammam, Mecca, Medina, Riyadh, Abha, Ha'il
and Tabuk. Mackey said that the eight cities and towns "were carefully
chosen not only to give maximum exposure but, one suspects, to reach other
potential nests of discontent
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