the isolated city, in 1965 the then King Faisal inaugurated the 54 mi (87 km) mountain highway between Mecca and Ta'if, and in 1974 the 400 mile Ta'if-Abha-Jizan highway was started. By the 1991 Gulf War, Ta'if was such a modern city in terms of communications that it was chosen as the site of The Rendon Group's television and radio network which used to feed the news to Kuwait during the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq
