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 produced weapons from under their robes, chained the gates shut and killed two policemen who were armed with only wooden clubs for disciplining unruly pilgrims. 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 Otaibi'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.
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Famous quotes containing the word seizure:
“Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)