Haj gets underway amid tight security

PILGRIMS IN MECCA: security teams to guide the moving mass of people, with ambulances and medics on standby (AFP).

Nearly two million Muslim faithful on Monday set off from Mecca in Saudi Arabia to the valley of Mina as the annual Haj pilgrimage got under way amid strict security arrangements.

The pilgrims, wearing white robes, walked or boarded buses to Mina, five kilometres east of the holy city, to begin tracing the journey made by the Prophet Mohammed more than 1,400 years ago.

Most of the pilgrims are expected to spend the day known as "Yawm at-Tarwiya" at Mina, an optional ritual, while others will head straight to Mount Arafat.

On Thursday and Friday all the pilgrims will return to Mina for the ritual of stoning the three pillars that represent the devil and evil.

Those staying in Mina on Monday will spend the day praying and meditating, sleeping at night in tents before heading farther south to Mount Arafat.

The official Saudi news agency SPA said security teams had been deployed to control and guide the moving mass of people, with ambulances and medics on standby.

Saudi Arabia has made huge efforts to try to smooth the path of pilgrims during the Haj which has seen periodic catastrophes created by the crush of humanity anxious to perform one of the pillars of Islam.

Mina was the site of the deadliest toll in July 1990, when a total of 1,426 pilgrims were trampled or asphyxiated to death in a stampede in a tunnel.

And last year in Mina, 364 people were killed in a stampede at the entrance of the Jamarat Bridge, from which the stoning of the pillars takes place.

This year, a third level has been added to the bridge to ease the flow and Saudi officials say the crossing can now handle more than 200,000 people every hour.

So far the final number of the pilgrims is not known, but SPA said 1,685,637 pilgrims have come to Saudi Arabia from abroad. A further 200,000 people from within the kingdom usually also take part.

On Tuesday at Mount Arafat the faithful will spend the day praying and asking for God's forgiveness at the summit, in a symbolic waiting for the last judgment.

Among this year's pilgrims is Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was invited by Saudi King Abdullah and who is the first president of the Islamic republic to take part.

"If I made a mistake or in one of my speeches or said something that was not in line with interest of the nation and has hurt the nation or I was not able to defend its rights, then I ask people to forgive me," Ahmadinejad said in a speech late on Sunday before he left Iran, state media reported.

He will join other pilgrims in carrying out a series of sacred rituals, which includes walking counter-clockwise seven times around the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure at the Grand Mosque in Mecca towards which Muslims pray, wherever they are in the world.

An Iranian Haj official said Ahmadinejad had arrived in Medina and would pray in the Prophet Mohammed's mosque before heading to Mecca.

Ahmadinejad's pilgrimage has an added significance because of the sometimes rocky relations between largely Shi'ite Iran and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia.

An Iranian demonstration during the Haj in July 1987 led to Tehran and Riyadh breaking diplomatic relations the following year. Security forces tried to break up the protest and 402 people, including 275 Iranians, were killed. Iranian pilgrims then stayed away from the Haj until 1991.

In recent years, the two countries have given an impression of unity, vowing to work together to end the political crisis in Lebanon and bring stability to Iraq.

The pilgrimage, which ends on Friday, is one of the five pillars of Islam and is an obligation for all able-bodied Muslims at least once during their lives if they can afford it. The others are fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, praying five times a day, the Shahadah (the profession of the faith), and the Zakat, or giving of alms.

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