Grand mosque seizure of Mecca, 1979:
http://www.dawn.com/news/1210185The large bands of armed men who stormed Mecca and Medina in November 1979, had no idea (were not told) that the Saudis had been warned by the Soviet military intelligence service of the impending assault, and that the Saudis as a result had deployed ahead of time some 17,000 security personnel to deal with the problem.
But who could have planned such a revolt to take place at Mecca, using these attackers as a front cover?
It could not have been the Soviets, nor MI6 (Great Britain enjoyed a good relationship with the Saudis, even though it was left out of the Saudi oil fields deal after 1945), nor the CIA (the net price of Arab oil to petroleum companies of the USA was 5 cents a barrel, for 30 years, until king Faisal ended the deal).
And whoever planned the attack on Mecca was also heavily involved at that time in the American embassy takeover in Teheran.
Few historians understand that the plan to eliminate the Saudis and Khomeini (who was supposed to rule over Iran only for a couple of years) in 1979 was coming along very well, until the Soviets decided to interfere.
The plan was as follows:
a takeover of Mecca and Medina, while at the same time the oil fields of Saudi Arabia would be heavily bombarded
use these events to inflame Moslem rage against the West
followed by a huge deployment of American troops and equipment to Iran (using of course the hostages crisis as a cover), and actually take over the entire country, to be used as a base to attack the former Soviet Union
The only group of intelligence officers and generals who could have pulled this off was of course to be found within the Pentagon: they were ready to take both the Saudis and Khomeini out with no problem at all.
Fast forward 36 years into the future, and we find a very similar scenario developing in Syria and in Iraq: the Pentagon will act independently of the Executive Branch.