Saudis Tell of Iran Plot to Seize Mosque

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia —  Saudi officials say thousands of Iranians in Mecca for the annual Muslim pilgrimage planned to seize the Grand Mosque and force pilgrims to proclaim Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini their religious leader.

According to Saudi officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, Iranians interrogated by authorities following riots in Mecca in which at least 402 people were killed confessed that they planned to take over the Grand Mosque in the city where 2.1 million Muslims from 123 countries gathered for the pilgrimage.

The Iranians planned to lock pilgrims inside the huge mosque and force them to declare Khomeini, Iran’s revolutionary patriarch, the religious leader of the world’s 850 million Muslims, the officials said. If the trapped pilgrims resisted, the plan called for killing the mosque’s prayer leader and setting fire to parts of the building, the officials said.

Nearly all Iranian Muslims are Shias, a minority sect at odds for 1,300 years with the Sunni sect that includes the Saudi Royal Family and 85% of the world’s Muslims.