The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine

The Siege of Mecca

A thriller-like account of an event largely hushed up

The first detailed account of the event &hellip; brilliantly researched and eye-opening &hellip; this is undoubtedly a book of international significance

A gripping and revealing account of this brutal uprising &hellip; The Siege of Mecca is a marvel of investigative journalism &hellip; Trofimov's viciously gory account unfolds with a sharp eye for detail and accuracy

Trofimov tells this tale with considerable verve and authority. He has interviewed many of the surviving witnesses and participants in a country suffused with fear and paranoia, and sets the siege within a wider historical context

Yaroslav Trofimov joined The Wall Street Journal in 1999 and in 2001 became a roving foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and the Balkans. He is also the author of Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu.

20 November 1979: as morning prayers began, hundreds of hardline Islamist gunmen, armed with rifles smuggled in coffins, stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca. With thousands of terrified worshippers trapped inside, the result was a bloody siege that lasted two weeks, caused hundreds of deaths, prompted an international diplomatic crisis and unleashed forces that would eventually lead to the rise of al Qaeda. 
 
Journalist Yaroslav Trofimov takes us day-by-day through one of the most momentous &ndash; and heavily censored &ndash; events in recent history, interviewing many direct participants in the siege and drawing on secret documents to reveal the truth about the first operation of modern global jihad.

Yaroslav Trofimov

For verve, knowledge and detail Trofimov can seldom be beaten and his writing is rich in local colour

A fast-paced, unflinching witness narrative of the war&rsquo;s first year, perceptive in its accounts of Russian overconfidence and the inventive, makeshift ways in which Ukrainians fought back against a larger force invading on three fronts

Our Enemies Will Vanish achieves the highest level of war reporting: a tough, detailed account that nevertheless reads like a great novel. One is reminded of Michael Herr's Dispatches or the best work that came out of Bosnia in the 1990s; frankly, it's what we have all aspired to. I did not really understand Ukraine until I read Trofimov's account, and now I am even more convinced that the world must stand behind Ukraine and every other democracy fighting for survival

SEBASTIAN JUNGER,  bestselling author of The Perfect Storm

Our Enemies Will Vanish is a stunning work of eyewitness reportage and literary nuance that brings alive both the brutalities of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war&rsquo;s small absurdities and comic interludes. Only a Ukrainian native with Trofimov&rsquo;s wide experience of covering war could have delivered such a clear-eyed and memorable book&mdash;an instant classic.

STEVE COLL, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ghost Wars

His extraordinarily brave reporting, exceptionally clear writing and unusually trenchant analysis have made Yaroslav Trofimov one of the most important journalists covering the war in Ukraine&mdash;and now his book will become an essential first draft of the history of the war

ANNE APPLEBAUM, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Twilight of Democracy

Yaroslav Trofimov has been reporting courageously and tirelessly on the Russian invasion of Ukraine since its beginning. With Our Enemies Will Vanish, Trofimov marshals his unrivaled experience and knowledge to offer the most comprehensive, authoritative book on the war to date. From the frontlines of the Donbas to the presidential headquarters in Kyiv, Trofimov chronicles an epic story of national tragedy, heroism, and resistance that is as edifying as it is moving. Required reading for anyone trying to understand this historic conflict

LUKE MOGELSEN, author of The Storm is Here

Whatever happens, the world will always recall the resourcefulness and bravery of the Ukrainian people in defending their nation against overwhelming odds. In this gripping and lucid account, Trofimov bears witness to the war ravaging his homeland. Our Enemies Will Vanish is an unputdownable book about an unforgettable piece of modern history

JOHN LEE ANDERSON, bestselling author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

Few have matched the depth and breadth of Trofimov&rsquo;s reporting on the war. Our Enemies Will Vanish is a gripping read that meticulously lays out what&rsquo;s at stake in Ukraine. But it&rsquo;s the vivid detail and keen observations, combined with Trofimov's deep knowledge of Ukraine's history and language, that make the book essential reading

The war in Ukraine is the biggest story of our time, and no one has covered it better than Yaroslav Trofimov. This is the story of the invasion itself, brought to life by his relentless reporting and vivid prose. It's an essential document for our times

DEXTER FILKINS, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Forever War

An outstanding, breath-taking and authoritative account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Trofimov is renowned as one of the great journalists of our time; and this account shows why

PETER FRANKOPAN, bestselling author of The Silk Roads

We don&rsquo;t know how this war will end, but if you want to know how Ukraine survived its early chaotic days&mdash;and endured&mdash;then read this book. Our Enemies Will Vanish takes the reader from the corridors of power to frontline trenches while documenting the brutality and terror endured by Ukrainians forces to flee, and those who remained. It charts too, in hair-raising detail, the danger and determination of a dynamic trio, correspondent Trofimov, his photographer Manu Brabo and security adviser Stevo Stephen as they race from frontline to frontline in a rapidly changing war. Yaroslav Trofimov&rsquo;s gripping account is full of crisp details and contains a deep visceral understanding of Ukraine and a nation&rsquo;s&mdash;his nation&rsquo;s&mdash;struggle for survival

QUENTIN SOMERVILLE, BBC Middle East Correspondent

A brilliant and stirring account of the months after the invasion...  Yaroslav Trofimov, who has covered the war for the Wall Street Journal, is Ukrainian by birth. By layering detail upon telling detail from his notebooks, he builds up a vivid picture of how the men and women of Ukraine repulsed the Russian blitzkrieg with cleverness and courage

A kind of cinema verité on the page, an account of the war that&rsquo;s as close as one can get to that first draft of history as it&rsquo;s spoken by those who experienced the events. . . . Trofimov has collected a chorus of voices that add up to the truest first draft I have yet to read of the first chaotic year. Like those soldiers breathlessly recounting the just-fought battle, he&rsquo;s helped us make sense of one of the grimmest wars of our time

Our Enemies Will Vanish is clearly not an outsider&rsquo;s account, though as an experienced reporter, Trofimov mostly avoids the twin temptations of personalizing and pontificating, instead hewing closely to what he sees . . . It&rsquo;s a sober, plain-spoken assessment that doesn&rsquo;t tell us all that much&mdash;which is also what makes it honest

Captures some of the most difficult, gruesome stories of the war . . . Trofimov's panorama of a rapidly mobilized country is part war correspondence, part road trip. Those details are so intense that they sharpen everything around them. You can practically taste the gas station hot dogs and Lavazza espressos, or the negronis Trofimov can sometimes find at a hotel bar

Trofimov&rsquo;s book is a comprehensive account of the startling and heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people . . . [it] catalogues, in a quietly devastating way, the sheer human cost of the war

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yaroslav Trofimov has spent months on end at the heart of the conflict, very often on its front lines. In this authoritative account, he traces the war’s decisive moments—from the battle for Kyiv to more recently the gruelling and bloody arm wrestle involving the Wagner group over Bakhmut—to show how Ukraine and its allies have turned the tide against Russia in a modern-day battle of David and Goliath. Putin had intended to conquer Ukraine with a vicious blitzkrieg, in a few short weeks. But in the face of this existential threat, the Ukrainian people fought back, turning what looked like certain defeat into a great moral victory, even as the territorial battle continues to seesaw to this day. This is the story of their epic bravery in the face of almost unthinkable aggression.

Yaroslav Trofimov

Praise for Our Enemies Will Vanish

For verve, knowledge and detail Trofimov can seldom be beaten and his writing is rich in local colour

A fast-paced, unflinching witness narrative of the war’s first year, perceptive in its accounts of Russian overconfidence and the inventive, makeshift ways in which Ukrainians fought back against ...

Our Enemies Will Vanish achieves the highest level of war reporting: a tough, detailed account that nevertheless reads like a great novel. One is reminded of Michael Herr's Dispatches or the best work ...

For verve, knowledge and detail Trofimov can seldom be beaten and his writing is rich in local colour

A fast-paced, unflinching witness narrative of the war’s first year, perceptive in its accounts of Russian overconfidence and the inventive, makeshift ways in which Ukrainians fought back against ...

Our Enemies Will Vanish achieves the highest level of war reporting: a tough, detailed account that nevertheless reads like a great novel. One is reminded of Michael Herr's Dispatches or the best work ...

For verve, knowledge and detail Trofimov can seldom be beaten and his writing is rich in local colour

A fast-paced, unflinching witness narrative of the war’s first year, perceptive in its accounts of Russian overconfidence and the inventive, makeshift ways in which Ukrainians fought back against ...

Our Enemies Will Vanish achieves the highest level of war reporting: a tough, detailed account that nevertheless reads like a great novel. One is reminded of Michael Herr's Dispatches or the best work ...

Books by Yaroslav Trofimov

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