Talk:Grand Mosque seizure

message: No, it wasn't. Don't say that banning women's rights, forcing people to become muslim and banning every other religion is Islamic, it's not. 
Did you get this info from Bill Warner or something? Don't say something is about the sharia when you can't back it up without a surah. 
Saudi Arabia is about as Islamic as a Pork Chop and a bottle of Vodka.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:8886:300:68B5:3C57:78C6:2E65 (talk) 16:12, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:FORUM violation  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.45.222 (talk) 19:52, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  A stricter form of the sharia was implemented 

message: The article says this: Islamic Militants, strength: 200 militants, casualties and losses: 250 killed, 600 wounded, 68 executed, this is 250+600+68= 918 "militants".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.239.205.43 (talk) 02:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematics 

message: When I first read the article, last April, there was not even one article linking to this one. I linked to it from 3 other articles; it wasn't even mentioned in a list of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia! I suppose it merits some more links, as there are so many aspects to this, relatively early, Islamist attack.
GdB 10:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Wiki links? 

message: first of all There Was No Pakistani Involvement
i have two videos of the incident. all the troopers and vehicles in the videos of combat were Saudis. the Pakistani involvement is a rumor , not a fact. and its only started by "it is said that.." or a rumor by an anti-Saudi propaganda book which can not be reliable as a source. 
only 3 Frenchmen from GIGN were connected but they never participated. they were sent to the military base in Taif to provide quick training for Saudi Special Security Forces on non-lethal gas weapons. 
if it is possible on wikipedia , i may upload the live-combat two videos and make them available online. 
--77.31.203.146 (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Videos of the Incident 

message: There's no evidence of the French and Pakistani forces being involved. It should be either deleted, or someone should provide proof.--70.230.200.219 12:46, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I heard alot about french support in this case . Ammar (Talk - Don't Talk) 13:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless you can provide a few links from reliable sources, it should go. Mbslrm 20:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: don't worry , i still did not contribute. Ammar (Talk - Don't Talk) 00:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can't provide online reference but I have read several times that French anti-terror units commanded the rescue operation upon fetvas from religious figures about using weapons in Kaaba.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.254.131.29 (talk) 22:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

text: Yes it is time to remove all this incorrect claims about Pakistani assistance, there isn't a shred of evidence supporting it. Tehre are many sources discussing both French Special Forces involvement, as well as US pilots flying Saudi aircraft helping hte Saudis end this takeover. The only Pakistani angle at all seems to be the burning of the US embassy in Pakistan. 
Fareed Zakaria: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=63320228838951049
NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14765835
Former WSJ reporter book, including declassified diplmatic cables: http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/siegeofmecca/theBook.php SMih4 (talk) 15:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  No evidence 

message: I heard something about Juhaiman being declared the Mahdi during this debacle.  Does anybody know further?  (Thanks for the link to the book on the subject, I want to check it out now.)
Rustoler 21:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mahdi rumor 

message: http://www.amazon.com/Siege-Mecca-Forgotten-Uprising-al-Qaeda/dp/0385519257
Additional information regarding the siege have appeared, included detailed information of GIGN involvement. Anyone keen to surmise the salient points?
Koxinga CDF 13:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine 

message: See what you think.--BoogaLouie 23:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Have attempted to cleanup and source the article

message: "National Guard troops had infiltrated weapons, ammunition, gas masks, and provisions into the mosque compound over a period of weeks before the new year."
These are National Guardsmen sympathetic to the militants? This should be stated explicitly, it's confusing in its current form. Evercat (talk) 03:10, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: reworded it. Prevoiusly it sounded as though the whole National Guard was on the side of the insurgents. --BoogaLouie (talk) 19:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: National Guard

message: I have an interest in the Israeli/Palestine conflict, and also participated in the rescue effort on September 11, 2001 in New York City at the then bombed World Trade Center.  I am not particularly interested in intra-Muslim conflicts, but my other interests continually bring me to pages like this one.
The very last line in "Aftermath," implies success for the takeover--Saudi Arabia moved backwards (my view) towards repression of not only women, but dogs.  If this is true, it needs to be cited carefully, because the fallout of a "domino effect" within the heart of Muslim culture would imply impact world-wide, including downtown Manhattan on that day, the day the "music died."
Oddly, wherever I look in wp and in other sources, I find old-school Nazis and shady Swiss bankers!  What is up with that?--John Bessa (talk) 01:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Aftermath

message: I just finished read 'The Siege of Mecca' and I'm curious how such a major event (covered well in the book) could contain so many errors within this article.  Since finishing the book I've been amazed at how many people (some quite well read) had never heard about this event.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.71.214.50 (talk) 08:57, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a particularly important event in the English speaking world, which has more than enough religious nuts and extremists movements of its own. --NEMT (talk) 17:33, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: What!?

message: Did the insurgents have a plan for anything, or did they just (like insane violent Münsterites) expect angels to come to fight at their side? Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 12:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Reasons? Plans?

message: There seems to be a bit missing from the narrative - the point of how the siege was actually resolved? Slac speak up! 06:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: And then what happened?

message: The date changes with the setting of sun in the islamic calender, not at midnight. So the first prayer would be the dusk prayer (Maghrib), not the dawn prayer (Fajr) as mentioned.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fauzan Zaid (talk • contribs) 11:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: First Prayer of the year

message: "By the evening, the entire city of Mecca had been evacuated. " - some two million people?  I think this statement is a bit far-fetched.HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:18, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  citation needed - dubious 

message: An unknown user via IP 203.170.74.82 has been add some info about this topic by Pakistani Gen. Pervaiz Musharaf was included in this operation. This is a new and Non-authentic information which is not present before any pakistani media even Musharaf book's "In the line of fire" is also silent about this topic. The Editor of this info is requested that give trustfull reference of this news, other wise requested to admin of this page that delete this information . This behavior may create Controversy.
Given reference i.e. 'http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?42193-Remembering-the-siege-of-Holy-kaba-in-Makka-in-1979'  is just a chit chat not a valid news source.
  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nooruddin2020 (talk • contribs) 12:51, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed about musharaf 

message: The opening line reads The Grand Mosque seizure occurred during November and December 1979 ... during the annual Hajj pilgrimage. This cannot be correct as a little later the begin of the GM seizure is stated to have occurred on the first day of the Islamic year 1400, i.e. three weeks after the Hajj. AstroLynx (talk) 14:00, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date conflict in the opening line 

message: At this point this is just speculation without any reliable source. At best it should be listed under 'conspiracy theory' or rumor.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.163.13.146 (talk) 22:47, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable source Citation needed about Pakistani involvement and Musharaff

message: Should there not be a consistency between the title of this article and Masjid al-Haram? --Երևանցի talk  19:12, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title  

message: There are many inconsistencies and historically incorrect facts in this article. 
I am writing as someone who has researched the event for 7 (seven) years, has talked to over 150 people in Saudi, Jordan, France, USA, UK, Kuwait, UAE travelling more than 160.000 miles, with the purpose to produce a comprehensive documentary film for European television. The film is finished and since late 2018 is being aired on public broadcasting channels in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, many other European countries and the USA. A reference to the film can be found here at the film's main website, here at Germany's first national broadcaster ARD, here at INA, the French National Institute of Audiovisuals who helped producing the filmand here at World Sales company PBS in the USA. As all films, this one also has a time limit, in our case we had roughly 80 minutes. And because we had to tell the whole story, the bulk of the sometimes hour-long interviews had to be shortened, some to two or three short appearances only. But as you will be able to see on the project webpage (here: ) and when you watch the film, we have 1) collected testimonies from all sides, 2) refrain from judgement or making any statements, and 3) attempt to describe the event itself with as many details as we could fit into the 80 minutes we had at our disposal. In the very near future, we will put up a website that will publish ALL the interviews in the ENTIRETY, including the transcripts (from Arabic, English, French, and German). But this will take a considerable amount of time, resources, and people who work with us. We are talking about approximately 165 hours of interviews and approximately 3200 pages of transcripts.
Now, since Wikipedia for many people is a major resource of research - for some it is the only one they have the patience to go to - I would very much like to hint to some of the facts that to us seem to be incorrect, missing detail or simply wrong. One of the most urgent of these details is the allegation that Pakistani Special Forces were participating in the liberation of the Grand Mosque. The article right uses several citations, among them Christian Proteau, the founder and former commander of French Special Forces GIGN. We interviewed Prouteau twice in Paris in mid 2017 and one of the questions we asked was about a Pakistani participation. He categorically denied that there were any Pakistanis involved. Now before you start thinking "why does he say that?", think about something else: Prouteau was not himself present in Mecca. He sent his team of three specialists to handle the affair. So any he says could possibly only relate to what those three officers observed and witnessed. Neither of them - team leader Paul Barril, weapon specialist Ignace Wodecki, or gas specialist Christian Lambert, all interviewed at length by us - have had ANY meeting with any Pakistani security forces, nor any recollection of any foreign military presence beyond their own. All of them though describe the state of major agitation, anxiety and fear among their Saudi colleagues: what was happening had caught everybody by surprise.    
The fourth source: when we were researching and filming in Saudi Arabia, we were contacted by Abdulaziz Al Dhahri, the son of the Saudi General Faleh Al Dhahri who was the commanding military officer in Mecca of all operations taken out by Saudi forces. Again, we asked explicitly about Pakistani forces, and again the answer was no, there weren't any. The fifth source: one of the more extraordinary interviews we could secure was with Prince Turki Al Faisal, for almost 25 years chief of Saudi secret service and in 1979 appointed by Crown Prince Fahd and th Saudi royal family to lead the operations at the Grand Mosque. Same question, same answer. Turki though added an interesting detail: in the first days of the siege, Jordanian King Hussain flew to neighboring Saudi Arabia and offered his help. He was received by King Khaled himself at Riyadh airport, who thanked him but told him no Jordanian help was needed (and BTW, the Jordanians would have qualified SO MUCH BETTER than the Pakistanis: they were living nearby, they were British trained, and they knew the territory). Turki claimed that resolving the Mecca crisis was an operation that had to be resolved by the Saudi Royal Family itself whose duty was (and is) to be the Guardians of the Two Holy Places. We could corroborate his claim by other three sources. 
Again, wait before you draw conclusions. Because if it seems interesting that Saudi kept the French involvement a secret (for obvious reasons), France did the same.  No, I correct myself: France IS STILL DOING THE SAME. The "Mecca Mission" by the GIGN until today is not officially recognized by French authorities. Recently, a French broadcaster produced a big documentary about the special forces GIGN - the only mission that is not mentioned even once in the film is the one to Mecca. Our film though presents eye-witness accounts of people who were personally present when the official Saudi request for help was issued by Crown Prince Fahd himself to the French ambassador in Jeddah. 
I could go on an on, but I don't have the time right now, even though I notice that even after more than 8 years of research on this subject, I am still passionate about it. The 1979 Seizure of the Mecca Grand Mosque was so much more than a "military event" or a "hostage crisis": it was the first and until today the most dangerous attack on the legitimacy of the Saudi Royal family's rule since their ancestor King Abdulaziz had founded the Kingdom in 1932. It was the number one trigger event that lead them to shift their country shift to extreme religious conservatism. And it ultimately was one of three events that lead to the formation of religiously motivated terrorism (the other two being the Iranian revolution and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, all three of them significantly occurred in 1979). But that is the beginning of another story…      
   
If there is something like a "chief administrator" for this page, I am more than happy to be contacted by him / her and provide a private link to the English version of the film, and some more material if needed. I can't provide that link publicly because it would mean basically to steal from myself (I do films for a living and "giving my work for free" therefore is not an option).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by OutreMer1966 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your extensive comment.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offer to help with the many inconsistencies and historically incorrect facts in this article 

message: User:Truthwins018 (and before that various IPs) keeps adding claims that Pakistani forces were involved in the siege but I do not regard the main source:  as satisfying WP:RS. Mztourist (talk) 08:26, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the sources that you have provided are not WP:RS and those that are do not definitively detail Pakistani involvement in the siege, rather they contain vaguely worded reference to Pakistani assistance etc. RS requires properly researched information, not just anything you find on the internet. Mztourist (talk) 05:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

text: The French involvement is well known and documented in several RS, Pakistani involvement only appears to come from the Doctrine of Terror book and as I cannot access it I can't assess the relevant passage, please provide the quote that confirms Pakistani involvement. Mztourist (talk) 04:07, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

text: Note that Mahboob Illahi's Doctrine of Terror: Saudi Salafi Religion (FriesenPress, 2018) appears to be a self-published work and by admittance of the author on the copyright page to be largely dependent on Wikipedia. AstroLynx (talk) 15:21, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

text: Neither of the books can be regarded as reliable sources and the newspapers are just passing mentions. You are welcome to take the books to the reliable sources noticeboard for community opinion. Mztourist (talk) 03:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean by "the whole of this wikipedia page is mostly sourced by it"? Doctrine of Terror is cited only twice in the article. Also, even Doctrine of Terror isn't giving a very strong endorsement of Pakistani involvement; instead of asserting definitively that Pakistani troops were involved, it only states that Christian Prouteau "claims" that Pakistani SSG troops carried it out. Audacious Ascetic is a little better as a source, but its mention of Pakistani involvement is even more limited. From scanning the sources it looks like French involvement is always mentioned, but Pakistani involvement is only sometimes mentioned, and not with much detail. If you're going to include it at all, I think it would have to be in speculative style, like "Some claim that Pakistani SSG troops were involved".--Shmarrighan (talk) 08:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Shmarrighan, unless better sources can be provided that is all that should be stated. Mztourist (talk) 08:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

text: There is no RS of Pakistani involvement. I have just finished reading Black Wave by Kim Ghattas and it mentions French involvement, not Pakistani involvement. Mztourist (talk) 03:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Truthwins018 As I said before, I would be fine with mentioning the possibility of Pakistani involvement as long as it's phrased in the style of "Christian Prouteau claims..." or something similar. The trouble is that it has been inserted into this article as if it is undisputed fact, which it is not. But I would also see no problem removing Doctrine of Terror from the article completely, particularly as it's now only cited one time. We would want to replace it with a reliable source for the French involvement. Mztourist, would Black Wave work as a source for the text that currently is sourced to Doctrine of Terror? The text is "the three GIGN commandos trained and equipped the Saudi forces and devised their attack plan (which consisted of drilling holes in the floor of the Mosque and firing gas canisters wired with explosives through the perforations), but did not take part in the action and did not set foot in the mosque but the action was rather performed by Saudi commandos." If Black Wave (or another source you have access to) holds this same information, I would appreciate if you would substitute it for the Doctrine of Terror citation.--Shmarrighan (talk) 08:13, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Black Wave doesn't go into that level of detail. I'll check Robert Lacey's Inside the Kingdom. Mztourist (talk) 08:15, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I checked Robert Lacey's Inside the Kingdom and there is no mention of any Pakistani involvement. He says that the French commandos stayed in Ta'if and didn't enter Mecca. Mztourist (talk) 13:39, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

text: Absolutely not, there are no RS that support Pakistani involvement. Mztourist (talk) 08:47, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pakistani involvement 

message: there is NO evidence of pakistani troops, whatsoever. being from pakistan myself, i know what happens: first of all, this claim is considered common knowledge in pakistan and people are extremely proud of it. they will know nothing else or little about the incident. as such, someone from pakistan lands on this page and doesnt see any mention of their country's involvement they will add it.
since its not by done by one person but a large population, i think this article needs to be locked. it is frustrating to have this page being edited 20+ times for the same false claim.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:F05A:A900:3168:5D30:1A84:619A (talk) 18:48, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  request to lock this page due to the myth of pakistani involvment