WHERE THE WAR STARTED:

The siege of Mecca was the first act of modern international jihad, an opening salvo in the war between a radical version of Islam and the West. It was also a challenge to the House of Saud, which had ruled the Arabian Peninsula since 1744, a radicalizing event for a young Osama bin Laden and a preview of what became al-Qaida.

As soon as word of the assault filtered back to the capital, Riyadh, the country's shaken royal rulers clamped down with a near-total news blackout, cutting off all Saudi phone lines to the outside world and closing the borders. When Mecca's police finally scrambled to the scene a few hours later, they were repelled by gunfire and suffered high casualties. The Ministry of the Interior then did the previously inconceivable: It sent troops -- the national guard, the regular army and special forces -- into Mecca.

But first the ministry had to cut a deal. Muslim tradition holds that the mosque is so sacred it's forbidden to bear arms there. Before reluctant Saudi soldiers agreed to follow orders, the Ministry of the Interior had to secure an authorization, a fatwa, from Muslim clerics vetting the counterattack as permissible under the circumstances. according to Yaroslav Trofimov, former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of The Siege of Mecca.

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