Report: Saudis say purported terror attack on Mecca's Grand Mosque foiled

Doug Stanglin | USA TODAY

Saudi security forces foiled a purported terror plot on Friday that targeted the Great Mosque of Mecca, the holiest site in Islam, the security spokesperson of the Saudi Interior Ministry, Mansour al-Turki said, according to Al Arabiya.

The spokesman said two separate attacks were planned in Mecca and a third in Jeddah.

A suicide bomber, who was hiding in a house in a Mecca neighborhood, opened fire on security forces and later blew himself up as authorities closed in, according to the Saudi-owned pan-Arab TV news channel.

Al Arabiya said five others were arrested, including one woman. Six people were injured along with five members of the security forces.

The purported plot would have hit the massive, 70-acre compound as hundreds of thousands of worshippers jammed the site on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

In 1979, some 500 fundamentalists Muslims armed with machine guns hidden under their robe seized the mosque for two weeks.

The attackers were finally overpowered by French commandos summoned by Saudi authorities. The commandos, according to news accounts, had to be briefly converted to Islam to allow them to enter the holy city.

In addition to more than 80 gunmen killed in the attack, more than 60 others were beheaded by sword in eight Saudi cities after the mosque was retaken.

Although Saudi authorities regained control, the country's leaders, shaken by the uprising, shifted course and began enforcing a stricter form of Islam in an attempt to counter the rise of fundamentalists. Among other steps, the authorities shut down movie theaters in a gesture to proponents of a stricter brand of Islam.

Some experts believe the bold, if futile, seizure of the mosque by the fundamentalists later inspired the rise of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.