Saudi Arabia has tightened security measures in the kingdom before the annual Hajj pilgrimage, which begins on Monday.
More than 1.6 million Muslim pilgrims have already arrived in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, and Saudi officials say they have installed more than 1,000 surveillance cameras around the city to monitor crowds.
Several helicopters fitted with cameras will also be deployed over the city, General Saleh Mohammed al-Shihri, commander of the Central Control of the Hajj Security, told AP news agency.All Muslims must try to perform the Hajj to Mecca, birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, during their lifetime.
"Saudi Arabia has mobilised all the needed security and municipal forces for a smooth Hajj, so hopefully we will not see any problems," Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, the interior minister, said on Saturday.He wasspeaking after a parade of some of the 50,000 security forces involved in protecting the Hajj.Nayef said there was no link between this year’s Hajj and the arrest of 208 men last month in the latest of a series of sweeps against suspected fighters.Ahmadinejad expectedMahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, is expected to perform the Hajj this year after a personal invitation from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.The invitation is notable as the Iranian leader is an adherent to the Shia sect of Islam, the main faith in Iran, whereas Saudi Arabia is predominantly Sunni.Tensions between the two main sects of Islam have spilled over into violence in Iraq.There are also ongoing concerns of repercussionsafter last week’s deadly suicide bombing in Algeria and the ongoing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan.Medical precautionsPilgrims will perform a series of sacred rituals, including walking counter-clockwise seven times around the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure in Mecca towards which Muslims pray.Authorities are also hoping to avoid any repeat of the deadly incidents that have hit the Hajj in earlier years.Last year more than 360 people were killed in a stampede at the entrance of the Jamarat Bridge, where Muslims cast stones at a pillar representing Satan.A further 70 at least died after a hostel in Mecca housing pilgrims collapsed.Authorities have deployed 11,000 doctors, nurses and paramedics to provide medical care to pilgrims and 85 ambulances have also been mobilised.Health alerts will be issued in case of any outbreak of disease, local media reported.Palestinian pilgrimsIn other news, Israel has agreed to let about 900 Gaza pilgrims travel through Israeli territory en route to Saudi Arabia, Palestinian and Israeli officials said on Sunday.Israeli officials said the passage through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing was under way at midday, but couldn’t specify how many Gazans had actually crossed.The Israeli approval was given at the last minute.
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Ahmadinejad’s Hajj more than religious
SANA ABDALLAH -Middle East Times
http://www.metimes.com/International/2007/12/13/ahmadinejads_hajj_more_than_religious/5979/
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will become the first Iranian sitting president to perform the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, in another sign that relations between Tehran and its Arab neighbors are warming up.
His senior adviser, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, confirmed Wednesday that Ahmadinejad has accepted an invitation to Mecca from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, according to the semi-official Iranian Mehr news agency.
The move is seen as being a helpful step to ease regional tensions.
Although this would be Ahmadinejad’s third visit to Saudi Arabia since taking office, the Saudi monarch’s invitation to a sitting president of the Islamic Republic of Iran to fulfill one of Islam’s five required pillars was largely seen in Tehran as an important development.
"It is the first time in the history of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia that the king of this country invites a president of the Islamic republic to make the pilgrimage to Mecca," Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Ahmadinejad’s media adviser, said Wednesday.
"As a result, the visit of Ahmadinejad is considered to be an important event in the relations between the two countries," added Javanfekr, who was already in Saudi Arabia when he made his remarks.
The invitation was extended a day after Ahmadinejad said he would conduct the Hajj this year in Mecca, in western Saudi Arabia, if he was invited by King Abdullah.
Riyadh declared that the five-day pilgrimage rites, performed by 1.5 million Muslims, would begin Dec. 18 when the pilgrims converge on Mount Arafat near Mecca.
Tensions between predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia – a close U.S. ally – and Shiite Iran began with the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution that the Arabs feared would spill over to the rest of the region.
Saudi Arabia was one of Iraq’s biggest supporters during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and Iran’s late Islamic revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, labeled leaders of the Arab kingdoms as U.S. lackeys.
Their relationship hit rock bottom in July 1987 when more than 400 people, most of them Iranians, were killed in clashes between Iranians and Saudi security forces during the Hajj.
But Saudi-Iranian ties began to thaw under former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, although Iran’s influence on Shiite populations and groups in the turbulent region, especially in Iraq and Lebanon, increases tensions now and then.
Arab analysts say that with Iran’s rising political leverage in the Arab region and its suspected potential to become a nuclear military power, King Abdullah – who enjoys substantial influence with the pro-Western Arab regimes – has embarked on the diplomatic exercise of winning over Tehran instead of confronting it.
Since Sunni-Shiite strife was unleashed in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, Saudi leaders have been accused by Iran and Iraqi Shiites of supporting Sunni insurgents.
Riyadh denies these charges. Yet, according to Arab diplomats, the Saudis have refrained from lashing back at Iran with counter accusations on Tehran’s involvement in Iraq, instead preferring to keep channels open to win Iran’s cooperation on settling Iraq’s and Lebanon’s internal disputes.
Riyadh and Tehran have been the major regional players in efforts to calm the Lebanon crisis, in which the Saudi-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has been locked in political disputes with the opposition, led by Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah organization, backed by Iran.
Lebanese analysts expect that Ahmadinejad’s Hajj pilgrimage this month will help the anti- and pro-Western politicians in Lebanon to come closer to electing a president and to formulate an agenda and lineup for a new cabinet.
Lebanon has been without a head-of-state since pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud’s term expired Nov. 23.
Meanwhile, Arab diplomats told the Middle East Times that a recent report by the U.S. intelligence community, the National Intelligence Estimate, that said Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 had alleviated some Arab fears, particularly in the Gulf, of an imminent Iranian atomic bomb next door, or worse yet, a U.S. or Israeli war with Iran using nuclear weapons.
The diplomats also agreed that the NIE report has calmed the region’s growing nuclear hysteria and has made the Arab Gulf role in appeasing its Persian neighbor less rigorous.
The NIE report was published a day after the summit of the six-member Arab Gulf Cooperation Council concluded Dec. 4 in Doha, at which the delegates reiterated their desire for a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear crisis with the West.
Ahmadinejad was also the first Iranian president to be invited to attend a GCC summit, during which he addressed his Arab neighbors and called for a regional security cooperation pact with his country.
Though religious in nature, King Abdullah’s invitation to Ahmadinejad to conduct Hajj in Islam’s holiest site is clearly another political gesture by Riyadh to bring Iran closer to the Arab ranks in the hope of encouraging Iran to help pacify tensions in the region.