The Siege of Mecca

I recently finished reading The Siege of Mecca by Yaroslav Trofimov. Subtitled The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda, the book details a week-long armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by a group of religious fanatics.

This event is little remembered in America, partially because it occurred during our embassy crisis with Iran and partially because the Saudi government kept information about it to a minimum. However, the event was at least as important as the Tehran hostage crisis and possibly more so. Basically, a group of Islamic radicals following the Wahhabist movement (Sunni) seized the Mosque by force (the attack was actually trivially easy) and held it for a week, claiming that the Saudi government was hypocritical and should be opposed. The Saudis, with some French technical assistance, eventually cleared the mosque, as well as put down a Shiite revolt in northeastern Saudi Arabia.

However, the bloodshed and incompetence led to a number of groups, including Osama Bin Laden, whose older brother provided the government with interior floor plans of the mosque, to decide that the Saudi government had to be overthrown. Also, since the US government incorrectly believed that the takeover was conducted by Shiite extremists, the risk of Sunni extremism was discounted. Lastly, the Saudi government, in order to pacify their "kept" religious leadership, had to sponsor both internal cultural crackdowns and external missionary movements. These movements spawned the madrassas of Pakistan and elsewhere, many of which have now proven to be farm teams for terrorists.

I read of "sentence Sunday" via jeff_duntemann but I missed it. I may do a "sentence Tuesday" of my WIP. Speaking of which:

Word Count for Space Rescue
Complete (36.5K) Goal (80K)
45.63% complete
Since Last Post = 1,900 words

Things accomplished in fiction: Various add-ins to create J. R.'s sister E. T. "Evie" Story. Kelly goes-a-spying.