Forty years ago this week, on Nov. 20, 1979, a group of militants did the unthinkable: They seized the Grand Mosque in Makkah, taking people hostage inside in a two-week standoff with Saudi forces.
Until recently, the crisis remained too painful for Saudis to examine fully for almost four decades. Now Arab News, șÚÁÏÉçÇűâs leading English-language daily, is looking back at the event in a way that no publication in the Kingdom has done before: with a multimedia Deep Dive story online atÌę.
âThe 1979 attack on MakkahâsÌęÌęGrand Mosque halted major social development in the Kingdom of șÚÁÏÉçÇű, negatively affecting a progressing nation for generations to come,âÌęsaid Rawan Radwan, the lead reporter on the project, who is based in Jeddah.ÌęâAt Arab News, we delved deep into the matter to uncover the story ofÌęJuhayman, the terroristÌęwhoÌęseizedÌęthe holiest site andÌęshook the Islamic world. Itâs a story that for many years struck fear in the hearts ofÌęthe Saudi people, yet has not been covered in such depth in local or international media âÌęuntil now.â
Arab News launched its Deep Dive series earlier this year as an engaging new way to showcase its in-depth storytelling on key topics, enlivened by audio, video and animated graphics. Its first story was an in-depth account of the space mission by the first Arab astronaut, Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman; the siege of Makkah is another story from the Kingdomâs past that it chose to revisit.
Extensive research was conducted over two months in several cities, including Makkah itself, and involved teams in five of Arab Newsâ bureaus: Jeddah, Riyadh, Dubai, London and Beirut. The team interviewed key players such as Prince Turki Al-Faisal, then head of the General Intelligence Directorate, and re-created what happened in a series of interactive maps.
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