Indonesians ready for haj pilgrimage

Agencies Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Over 200,000 Indonesians will join more than two million Muslims who began on Friday the annual haj pilgrimage amid heightened security as Saudi Arabia continued to battle Islamic militants bent on undermining its ruling family.

Fadillah Achmad an Indonesian religious affairs ministry official said all Indonesian pilgrims would go on Saturday morning to Mount Arafat for a day of prayers in commemoration of the Prophet Mohammad's farewell sermon 14 centuries ago.

The pilgrimage will peak on Sunday, when Muslims across the world celebrate the Islamic Day of Sacrifice -- a national holiday in Indonesia.

The Indonesian government extended the holiday until Monday, a policy which has been in place since 2002, aimed at helping the tourism industry to recover following the Bali blasts.

As of Thursday, the death toll for Indonesian pilgrims had risen to 115 in Saudi Arabia, due to various illnesses, with 24 others in serious condition at hospitals, Indonesia's sanitation surveillance official Muchlis M said on Friday.

This year's haj is overshadowed by fears of a possible attack by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, blamed for a series of suicide attacks in the kingdom since the U.S. invasion of Iraq last March.

Sheikh Saleh al-Taleb urged Muslims gathered for Friday prayers against violence.

"The haj should not be turned into anything against its original intentions. A Muslim should not hurt another Muslim," he said in Mecca's Grand Mosque as quoted by Reuters.

Diplomats say the Saudi government is worried the militants will strike during the haj to undermine the ruling family, whose authority stems from its custodianship of Islam's holiest sites.

On Thursday, Saudi security forces captured a wanted militant and a number of other suspects after a firefight in Riyadh in which five policemen were killed.

Securing the haj is the top priority of the 5,000 Saudi police and military deployed in and around Mecca.

The security forces are also in charge of controlling the vast sea of pilgrims, after stampedes and crushes killed hundreds of people over the last decade, including 14 last year.

Saudi Arabia insists the five-day haj, one of the most striking manifestations of faith and unity in the world today, should be solely a religious affair.

But many pilgrims have politics on their mind.

"We hope God will give success to the Muslim people around the world and especially in our region," said Iraqi pilgrim Qadir Khidr. "And we hope God will get us out of our crisis now like he got us out of the last one."