Saudi faces security challenges as 2.5 million pilgrims prepare for Hajj

MECCA: Around 2.5 million Muslims begin the rituals of the Hajj today, leaving Saudi authorities with a daunting challenge of security and safety issues.

The Saudi authorities have mobilised some 100,000 security and civil defence personnel to insure a smooth pilgrimage and avoid deadly incidents that marred the extremely crowded rites in the past.

"We will mobilise all our means to prevent any harm against any pilgrim or any group of pilgrims," said Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, who recently became the crown prince of the Muslim kingdom on Tuesday.

He made the remark during an inspection tour of Hajj preparations as anti-riot and anti-terrorism police paraded in front of the kingdom's internal security czar as police and rescue helicopters hovered overhead.

The Hajj rituals begin Friday and peak on Saturday when all pilgrims assemble in the Arafat plain outside Mecca, and end with Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, which will be celebrated on Sunday.

Around 1.7 million Muslims are due to descend on Mecca from around the world while between 700,000 and 800,000 pilgrims will be coming from inside Saudi Arabia.

Coping with the world's largest annual human assembly poses a security headache for Saudi Arabia -- guardian of the two holiest Muslim shrines in the cities of Mecca and Medina, the birth places of Islam.

Saudi Arabia also launched a new $10.6-billion project for a new extension to Mecca's Grand Mosque to increase its capacity to two million worshippers.

Investments also included a light-railway connection linking the holy sites.

Hajj this year coincides with the Arab Spring democracy protests that have swept many nations in the region and led so far to the unseating of three autocratic leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Prince Nayef has insisted that the violence that has gripped some Arab countries in recent months is an "internal affair", but he has stressed that Saudi Arabia was ready for all situations.

"The kingdom is ready to face up to all situations, whatever they may be," he said on Tuesday.

"We hope this year's Hajj (pilgrimage) will take place in a very calm and spiritual atmosphere," the representative of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the pilgrimage, Hojatoleslam Ali Ghazi Asgar, said last week.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011