This event is paired with a lesser-known crackdown against the APPU in Kim Ghattas’s book Black Wave, which traces a forty-year long international rivalry to this event, among others. Yaroslav Trofimov’s 2007 book on this event argues that Paul Barrill participated in it to boost his image rather than as a neocolonial ploy. According to a prison letter, Mehmet Ali Ağca planned to assassinate John Paul II to get revenge for this event, which also prompted students at Quaid-e-Azam University to burn down the (*) U. S. Embassy in Islamabad. During this event, GIGN assisted in taking down insurgents who referred to themselves as “al-Ikhwan.” Students of the blind cleric Abd al-Aziz Ibn Baz carried out this event, and in its aftermath, King Khalid adopted hardline policies. For 10 points, name this event, during which Juhayman al-Otaybi’s Salafist cell captured the holiest site in Islam. ■END■
ANSWER: Grand Mosque seizure [or Holy Mosque seizure; or Masjid al-Haram seizure; prompt on siege of Mecca; prompt on attack on the Ka’aba] (Trofimov’s book is The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda.)
<Parameswaran, World History>
= Average correct buzz position