Region

DHULUIYAH, Iraq — When jihadists from the Islamic State group attacked last week the Shiite village of Al Saud in central Iraq received help from an unlikely source.

The police chief from the neighbouring Sunni town of Dhuluiyah, once a key Al Qaeda hub, came with a detachment of men and 15,000 rounds of ammunition.

"It is the first time Sunnis and Shiites fight together like this against IS," said Mullah Maher Al Juburi, the imam of Dhuluiyah, a town nestled in a U-bend on the Tigris River.

"They help us, we help them," he said from his villa, which the tribal fighters routinely use as a command centre.

Dhuluiyah's size belies its role in Iraq's tumultuous recent history.

It was the target of the first major US counter-insurgency raid after the invasion in June 2003. It then became a centre for the Islamic State's previous incarnation, Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Mullah Maher's brother was one of its leaders but switched sides and became a central figure of the Awakening movement masterminded and funded by the US military to turn Sunni tribes against the insurgency.

And now Dhuluiyah takes pride in being the first place where the jihadists met Sunni resistance in June as they swept towards Baghdad.

"They came from Mosul and just marched through one Sunni village after another without a fight but their advance stopped here," said Mohannad, a 27-year-old who left his job at Tikrit hospital to fight four months ago.

Breaking the stalemate 

The jihadist advance, in fact, stopped half way into Dhuluiyah, whose northern tribes let them in while the southern Jubur neighbourhood fought back.

"We know the people we are fighting, we recognise their faces," said Ibrahim Al Juburi, a 56-year-old former general in the army of executed president Saddam Hussein.

“We helped put them in jail in Abu Ghraib, Tikrit, Badush [near Mosul] and Taji” during the Awakening, he said.

Some escaped in prison breaks and advancing IS fighters freed the rest in June.

The motivation for holding out is clear: while IS gave most people in the Sunni areas they took a chance to pledge allegiance, they would have slaughtered the “traitors” of the Jubur tribe.

Maher Al Juburi inherited Dhuluiyah’s largest mosque when his brother “Mullah Nadhom” was shot dead near Baghdad’s Green Zone in 2012.

“We will never let them in again... We know it is a foreign project,” the young imam said.

On the frontline at the other end of Jubur, the body of an IS fighter has been lying under a tree for three days.

“We’re not sure where this one is from,” said police officer Abdallah Ali Hammash, “but so many of them are foreigners. There were two Yemenis killed in the same attack.”

His post is a pink building that was once the cafeteria of an amusement park, which now marks one of Dhuluiyah’s frontlines.

The cars of the ferris wheel are riddled with bullets and in its shadow lie the rotting bodies of more jihadists, left because of sniper fire.

Iraqi troops swooped down from the north last week to break the four-month deadlock.

On some days there are only around 150 IS fighters left in one main neighbourhood of the town and Jubur residents feel victory is close.

“We’ve done 80 per cent of the work, but we still need more help,” said Mohannad.

‘In this together’ 

The main street is teeming with army and police armoured vehicles and has become a giant open-air workshop where soldiers tinker away to fix a wheel mangled by a roadside bomb or repair a machinegun.

“We’re all in this together now,” said Ghassan, a tall Shiite policeman. “I consider myself to be from Dhuluiyah now.”

Several residents from Al Saud and other Shiite villages are now in Jubur, fighting with the Sunni tribesmen.

And some Sunni tribes north of Dhuluiyah assisted the army as it launched an offensive last week.

The latest developments in Dhuluiyah — once watched as a harbinger of which way Iraq’s Sunni minority would lean — could lead optimists to see the emergence of an anti-jihadist alliance.

But years of fighting, deals and betrayals have left the town and its people exhausted and fragmented, focused only the immediate survival of their closest tribal circle.

“The tribes in the north, they thought the Sunni revolution was coming. Now they can see what these people do to women and children,” said Mullah Maher.

“Some of them are changing their minds, they want to switch sides but it’s not really happening on a big scale. It’s a bit late.”

SANAA — Yemeni parties agreed on Tuesday to appoint an associate of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi as prime minister, two aides of Hadi said, a move some Yemenis hope will lead to the withdrawal of Shiite Muslim fighters from the capital Sanaa.

Hadi was expected to ask Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, the director of his office, later on Tuesday to form a government, the aides said, under an accord between the president and several parties, including the Shiite Houthi movement, intended to create a more inclusive administration.

Yemen was plunged into crisis last month when the Houthis battled troops loyal to an army general seen as close to a rival, Sunni Muslim, group.

Government institutions quickly fell into Houthi hands, allowing the group, whose members belong to the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam, to become power brokers in Yemen.

State news agency SABA confirmed that a committee of Hadi's advisers, representing various political parties, had met in Sanaa and on Tuesday "identified the figure" who fits the criteria for a new prime minister, but did not name any person.

Bin Mubarak, who holds a doctorate in business administration from Baghdad University, was born in 1968 in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden. He previously served as a consultant for international projects in Yemen before becoming director of the presidential office.

In March last year, bin Mubarak served as secretary general of Yemen's "conference of national dialogue", comprising representatives of all political parties and civic groups which Hadi had convened to map out reforms.

Houthis

The Houthi group has not yet agreed to the appointment of Bin Mubarak, a leader in the group said on Tuesday.

Abdel-Malek Al Ejri said Hadi had suggested five names at a meeting of his advisers, who represent various political parties in Yemen. When the aides failed to agree on a candidate Hadi suggested his presidential office director, as a compromise.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli military fired towards Hizbollah positions in southern Lebanon after two Israeli soldiers were wounded Tuesday in an explosion on the tense border, the most serious incident between the two countries in months.

The soldiers were on a patrol along the border when an explosive device went off, the Israeli military said. Israeli troops then found a second explosive device on the Israeli side of the border, which was detonated by Israeli bomb squads.

Israeli forces responded by firing artillery towards two positions of Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the Israeli Defence Forces said.

On its Al Manar TV station, Hizbollah issued a statement claiming responsibility for the blast, saying it targeted an Israeli patrol. The admission marked a rare instance of an open clash between the two bitter enemies.

Israel suspects that Hizbollah may be looking to flex its muscles along the Israeli border to Israel to deflect attention away from its struggles in fighting against Islamic rebels in Syria. Officials said Tuesday’s attack marked an escalation but they did not expect it to devolve into an all-out conflict.

Israel and Lebanon have been in a state of war for six decades, but the border area has remained largely quiet since a month-long war in the summer of 2006 between Israel and Hizbollah. There have been sporadic outbursts of violence since then.

Tuesday’s incident comes just two days after Israeli soldiers opened fire after what they said was a border breach in the Shebaa farms area. Lebanon’s military countered that one of its army outposts came under Israeli fire, and one soldier was lightly wounded.

“The Lebanese government and Hizbollah are directly liable for this blatant breach of Israel’s sovereignty,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman. “The IDF responded to the unprovoked aggression against its forces and will continue to operate in order to maintain the safety of the northern border of Israel.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has “proven that we will respond strongly against any attempts to harm us.”

RAMALLAH — The Palestinian government of national consensus will hold its first Cabinet meeting in Gaza this week, an official said Monday, after Fateh and Hamas overcame years of bitter rivalry.

"The Cabinet will on Thursday hold its first meeting in Gaza," said government spokesman Ihab Bseiso.

The rival Palestinian factions signed a reconciliation deal in April aimed at healing the bad blood since Hamas expelled Fateh from Gaza in a week of deadly clashes in 2007.

The Cabinet took office in June in the West Bank city of Ramallah but has yet to meet in Gaza, which was devastated in a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas-led fighters that ended with a ceasefire on August 26.

Bseiso said the move was aimed at sending a strong signal of support for Gaza ahead of an international donors' conference on reconstructing the enclave to be held in Cairo on Sunday.

"This is a message to the whole world that we have one government which should take responsibility for the rebuilding of Gaza," he said.

At the donors' conference, which is being chaired by Egypt and Norway, the Palestinian government is to ask for $4 billion to rebuild the Gaza Strip's battered infrastructure.

April's reconciliation agreement sought to end seven years of rival administrations, with Hamas ruling Gaza and Fateh, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, governing the West Bank.

Although the new Cabinet was sworn in on June 2, Hamas has remained the de facto power in Gaza, prompting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fateh, to accuse the Islamist movement of running a shadow government in the enclave.

But, following the war — and with crucial international support in the balance — the two sides agreed on September 25 that the consensus government would take up the reins in Gaza and play a key role in the Strip's reconstruction.

SANAA — Shiite rebels who breezed into the Yemeni capital unopposed last month are now widely thought to be moving to cement their grip by snatching a strategic strait and oilfields.

The militiamen known as Houthis stormed into Sanaa on September 21, easily seizing key government installations, and they now man checkpoints and run patrols across the city in almost total absence of the security forces.

The rebels, who Yemeni authorities accuse Shiite-ruled Iran of backing, have refused to quit Sanaa despite a UN-brokered deal to give them more influence with the Sunni-dominated government.

Numerous sources in Yemen say the Houthis are now setting their sights on prized assets like the narrow Bab Al Mandeb Strait leading to the Suez Canal, as well as oilfields in Marib province.

Bab Al Mandeb, a chokepoint whose Arabian shores are only 40 kilometres  across the water from Africa, carried an estimated 3.4 million barrels of oil a day in 2011, according to US Energy Information Administration.

But first, the rebels who fought the central government for more than a decade are looking to take control of the nearby export terminal of Hudeida on the Red Sea, where they opened an office last week.

"Hudeida is the first step before they extend their presence through the Popular Committees throughout the coastal strip to Bab Al Mandeb," a military official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Another military official said the aim of the Houthis was to "control Bab Al Mandeb, as well as Dhubab and Makha — two coastal regions that represent a passage for all sorts of smuggling, including arms".

The rebels, who are also known as Ansarullah, already had thousands of armed men in Hudeida, the official added.

Acting under the guise of the so-called "Popular Committees," the rebels are attempting to oversee public finances through "systematic control" of the finance ministry and central bank, according to employees.

The rebels have also set up a parallel justice system through a "complaints office" that resembles an Islamic law court, headed by Abdulkarim Emireddine Badreddine Al Houthi, the nephew of Ansarullah leader Abdulmalik Al Houthi, a local official said.

In the east of the country, the rebels are apparently eyeing Yemen's oil and gas reserves in Marib.

"They are looking to venture into the province of Marib, hoping that with the aid of allied tribes they could control the oil and gas wealth, as well as the main power plant that feeds the capital," said a source close to the rebels.

"But this plan faces resistance from tribes hostile to the Houthis, mainly the Abida and Murad tribes, who have mobilised their armed men," according to a tribal chief.

He pointed out that the Abida and Murad were allies of tribes that fought the rebels during the past three months in Jawf province, north of Marib.

And by stretching their presence to Marib, the rebels risk provoking a fight with Al Qaeda militants, who are active in the mostly desert province, as well as southern regions, political sources said.

The rebels' leader suggested this potential confrontation in a weekend statement on the occasion of the Muslim festival of Eid Al Adha, in which he condemned "plots against some provinces, including southeastern Hadramawt".

Hadramawt is a stronghold of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, which the United States considers the jihadist network's most dangerous affiliate.

The Houthis, who complain of marginalisation since the rule of now-toppled autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011, are concentrated in the rugged northwestern mountains where Shiites are a majority in otherwise Sunni-majority Yemen.

Building on their seizure of the capital, they are said to be trying to infiltrate the security forces by insisting on enrolling their men in the army and police force.

"The Houthis are negotiating the integration of some 20,000 of their fighters into the army, security forces and intelligence services," said a security official.

The developments have added to the instability in Yemen since the bloody uprising that ousted Saleh.

But they also threaten an already volatile region, with the Sunni-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council saying on October 1 that it "will not stand idly by in the face of factional foreign intervention," in reference to Iran's alleged backing for the Houthis.

PARIS — Lebanon's army will soon receive military equipment as part of a $1 billion grant from Saudi Arabia to help it fight Islamist militants encroaching into Lebanon from Syria, former prime minister Saad Al Hariri said on Tuesday.

Hariri, who has close links to the Saudi royal family, originally announced the deal after visiting King Abdullah in August, just days after Islamist militants attacked and briefly seized the Lebanese border town of Arsal.

The Lebanese army has since stepped up its efforts to prevent fighters, most notably from Al Qaeda's Syrian wing Al Nusra, from crossing into Lebanon, but it is ill-equipped and has repeatedly called for more military aid.

"With regard to the $1 billion that I am managing, in a few weeks, you'll see results," Hariri told reporters after meeting President Francois Hollande. "It is finalised and some equipment will arrive soon," he said without giving any details.

Lebanon has officially tried to distance itself from Syria's conflict, but the country's powerful Shiite movement Hizbollah has sent fighters to aid President Bashar Assad, an Alawite. Assad, like Hizbollah, is backed by Shiite power Iran.

The country, which is still rebuilding after its own 15-year civil war, has also seen clashes between gunmen loyal to opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, as well as militant strikes on the army and crossborder attacks by Syrian rebels.

One of the few institutions not overtaken by the sectarian divisions that plague the country, Lebanon's army has few resources to deal with the situation, and Hariri urged the international coalition to do more against Islamic State.

The United States has been bombing Islamic State positions in Iraq since August and extended the campaign to Syria in September. Arab states have joined both campaigns, while other Western countries are participating in Iraq but not Syria.

"They need to do a lot more. Islamic State is advancing. The Western coalition must be more focused and destroy all of Islamic State," Hariri said. "It must hit hard and in a systematic way, not just strategically."

The Sunni Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has itself taken part in air strikes in Syria, may be seeking to bolster the army as a counter-balance to Hizbollah.

Hizbollah itself suffered one of its biggest death tolls in a single action on Sunday after 10 of its fighters were killed in clashes with fighters from Al Nusra in eastern Lebanon.

Hariri was in Paris to meet Hollande to discuss the $1 billion deal and a second contract, which was agreed in December for which Riyadh agreed to grant Lebanon $3 billion to buy French weapons.

That contract has been under intense scrutiny for several months as negotiations between Paris and Riyadh over the deal have proved more complicated than first imagined.

Officials from all sides say the three-party nature of the deal is behind the delay, although French and Lebanese media have cited various reasons including commissions for the deal.

"Of course France will deliver weapons," Hariri said. "I think it should happen and we'll see in the coming days."

French daily Le Figaro cited on October 3 the head of the Lebanese army General Jean Kahwaji as saying he had signed off on the weapons list, but was still waiting for an agreement between the other two states.

Citing sources, the paper said Saudi Arabia was now asking for guarantees that a new president in Lebanon would ensure the equipment was not used by Hizbollah.

STOCKHOLM — Sweden's decision to recognise the Palestine state — without formally consulting its allies — may herald a wider foreign policy shift that has at its heart the aim of asserting a new diplomatic weight around the world.

The ruling Social Democrats had signalled in their election manifesto an intention to recognise Palestine. But the speed of their post-election announcement, made during Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's inaugural address to parliament on Friday, surprised some countries including Israel.

Until now Sweden, under a centre-right government, has been close to Washington, active in Western military operations, and a vocal proponent of EU market reform. In making it the first major West European country to recognise the Palestine state, Sweden's new centre-left government looks like it is suggesting a change of direction on several of those fronts.

"We hope that this will give a new dynamic to the discussion of what is going on in the Middle East," Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told Reuters.

Wallstrom, who after Friday's government statement tweeted: "New role for Sweden in the world!" also told Reuters Sweden would now be less enthusiastic about working with NATO, and push a foreign policy that looked at disarmament and womens' rights.

"The areas you will see a clear difference... there will be more focus on the United Nations... including disarmament issues," said Wallstrom, a former EU vice-president and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

"This will also be a feminist foreign policy, meaning that in everything we do the perspective of women, peace and security will be integrated."

Criticism

Palestinians seek statehood in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital. They have sought to side-step stalled peace talks by lobbying foreign powers to recognise their sovereignty claim.

The UN General Assembly approved the de facto recognition of the state of Palestine in 2012 but the European Union and most EU countries have yet to give official recognition.

Washington said Sweden's recognition of Palestine was premature and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the declaration was counter-productive.

The move to recognise Palestine appeared to have circumvented formal diplomatic circles, another sign that Sweden was determined to make its mark quickly.

"There has been no contact from the part of the government offices with other countries prior to the statement of government policy," Robert Rydberg, head of Middle East and North Africa department at Sweden's foreign ministry, told Reuters.

Israel also remarked on the speed of the statement.

"We expected it, it was an explicit campaign promise, but we were surprised that it came so fast," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, said.

In response Wallstrom told local Swedish television: "It was expected that we would get criticism for this but it's not the United States who decides our foreign policy."

‘Too passive’

Lofven has said one of the politicians that he most admires was former Social Democrat leader Prime Minister Olof Palme, who antagonised the United States with criticism of the Vietnam war and visits to countries like Cuba in the 1970s and 1980s.

In an interview before the election, Lofven said Sweden's foreign policy had been "too passive" and his government would be more active in the United Nations and human rights.

Analysts said Sweden's decision to take the initiative on Palestine may prompt other EU countries to follow its lead. So far within the 28-member bloc some countries, like Hungary, Poland and Slovakia also recognise Palestine, but they did this before joining the EU.

"What Sweden or the Swedish government has decided is 'let's break the deadlock' or contribute to breaking the deadlock by moving," said Professor Yossi Mekelberg, Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme at Royal Institute of International Affairs.

On top of Lofven and Wallstrom's independent views, Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson has also expressed different policies to those Sweden espoused pre-election.

Andersson has talked of less austerity in Europe — in contrast to her predecessor Anders Borg — and the need for more taxes on the rich and on companies in Europe to tackle inequalities.

"We will see a more independent foreign policy," said Ulf Bjereld, professor of political science at Gothenburg University. "It will be one that does not toe the line as much with the Europe Union or Washington.

"Sweden will be more visible."

BARAWE — Somalia’s army and African troops deployed forces on Monday inside a strategic port which they retook from Islamist rebels at the weekend, promising residents they would be protected.

The force of African Union peacekeepers and the Somali National Army said on Sunday they had driven out Al Shabab militants without a fight from Barawe, a stronghold used by rebels to ship in guns and generate cash from charcoal exports.

An official from the African Union force AMISOM told Reuters troops had entered the town at dawn on Monday. Previously, officials said they had avoided a hasty deployment in the town in case of ambushes or booby-traps left by the militants.

“We assure you that AU and Somali forces will not harm you. We have come to help you,” Abdirizak Khalif, deputy Somali military commander, told residents on a football pitch inside Barawe, which lies south of the capital Mogadishu.

African and Somali troops, with financial and training support from the West, launched an offensive this year to retake centres still held by Al Shabab group, a group aligned to Al Qaeda which wants to impose its strict version of Islam.

Despite gains, diplomats said some recaptured centres turned into “ghost towns” because Al Shabab blocked supply routes, forcing residents to flee. AMISOM and Somali officials have said they wanted to prevent that happening again.

As well as a conduit for arms, Barawe has thrived on exporting charcoal, providing revenue to Al Shabab.

Charcoal exports have been banned by the UN Security Council to block cash reaching the militants, but that has not stopped the trade. Some African states said the ban should be lifted as it made keeping the peace among residents tougher.

Somali commander Khalif told residents the port activity would resume swiftly.

Abdikadir Mohamed Sidii, the governor of Lower Shabelle region told Reuters that the charcoal export ban would be enforced, even though traders had asked to continue the trade.

“From now on, no charcoal will be exported,” he said.

A Reuters witness in Barawe on Wednesday said small boats could be seen from the coast carrying what appeared to be sacks of charcoal out to larger vessels.

Western diplomats said retaking Barawe would be a blow to Al Shabab by cutting off a major source of revenue. It would add to challenges facing the group after a US missile strike killed the group’s leader Ahmed Godane. A new one was appointed.

But the diplomats have said it would not stop the group, which is skilled at guerrilla-style gun and bomb attacks, even in the heart of Mogadishu, a city from which Al Shabab was ejected in 2011. The group controls swathes of countryside.

DUBAI — President Hassan Rouhani called on Tuesday for Iran’s universities to admit more foreign students and lecturers, dismissing conservatives’ fears that more interaction with the outside world would encourage espionage.

His remarks at Tehran University appeared to be a fresh riposte to hardliners in the Islamic republic’s faction-ridden political leadership who have been waging a determined campaign against his policies of international engagement.

In a speech marking the start of the academic year broadcast live on state television, Rouhani urged the establishment of a university teaching in English and suggested Iranian academic life had much to gain from more international exposure.

“Some people say that if we have contact with the outside world, if our teachers go abroad and their professors come here, maybe someone will be a spy among them. Stop making excuses!” he said to audience applause.

“Even if I don’t have expertise in anything else, at least your president has expertise in national security,” said Rouhani, a relative moderate with a decades-long pedigree in senior government posts, including chief nuclear negotiator with major powers.

‘Empty seats’

Though there is an English-language faculty of world studies at the University of Tehran, there is no university in the Islamic republic at which classes are entirely in English.

Rouhani, who received his PhD from a university in Scotland, called on Iran to interact with the world, not just in the realm of politics, but through economics, science and technology.

“Our universities have empty seats in certain subjects. We either have to make them smaller or invite foreign students.

“I’m not saying let’s start from those places that are scary to some people,” he added, in an apparent reference to Western countries generally considered enemies since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. “I mean let’s just start with our neighbours.”

He added: “Let our students go abroad for a term. At least create one university that has English as the main language so that we can attract foreign students.”

Although successive Iranian governments have insisted they support free speech and welcome constructive opposition, liberal minded students and academics have accused the authorities in practice of clamping down on dissent on campuses.

Brain drain

Rouhani has repeatedly clashed with conservatives in parliament and other state institutions — including the judiciary and elite Revolutionary Guards — who disagree with his conciliatory rhetoric, liberal approach to intellectual and social life at home and his decision to revive negotiations with the Western powers over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.

Iranian students are allowed to study abroad but many use the opportunity to settle overseas. International educational exchanges involving the Islamic republic are weighted towards Iranians studying overseas. Foreign students admitted to Iranian campuses tend to focus on religious studies.

Conservative hardliners scored a victory in August when the Iranian parliament sacked Rouhani’s science, research and technology minister, the first time the assembly impeached and dismissed a minister since his landslide election in June 2013.

Their complaint against Reza Faraji-Dana was that he had allowed students expelled from university over anti-government unrest in 2009 to return to classes.

The unrest was sparked by the re-election of Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Reformist-minded Iranians believed the vote was rigged. Security forces stamped out the protests and the two figureheads of the reformist “green movement” were placed under house arrest, where they remain.

MECCA — Hundreds of thousands of Muslims began a mass movement Thursday out of the holy city of Mecca towards nearby Mina in western Saudi Arabia, at the launch of the annual Hajj (the greater Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca).

A pillar of the Islamic faith, this year's Hajj comes with Saudi authorities striving to protect pilgrims from two deadly viruses, Ebola and the MERS coronavirus.

It is also taking place against the backdrop of widespread revulsion among Muslims towards Islamic State group jihadists.

Saudi Arabia and four other Arab nations have joined Washington in air strikes in Syria against the militants, who have declared a "caliphate" straddling that country and Iraq where they have committed a spate of atrocities.

Authorities say close to 1.4 million believers have come from abroad to follow the 1,400-year-old tradition of Prophet Mohammed, alongside pilgrims from Saudi Arabia.

"It is a beautiful feeling," said Aziza Yousfy, 60, from Algeria, before leaving Mecca.

Seeing nearby Mina Valley and Mount Arafat "has always been a dream for me", she said.

Mount Arafat is where Prophet Mohammad gave his final sermon, after leading his followers on the Hajj.

Sayed Tajamul Haq, 64, an Indian pilgrim walking with his wife, voiced hope that "God will accept our prayers for forgiveness and mercy", during an experience he described with a smile as "fantastic”.

The Arab News reported that a recent French convert to Islam had driven 7,000 kilometres from North Africa to take
part in the Hajj.

Pilgrims were moving a few kilometres from Mecca to nearby Mina by bus or on foot on Thursday.

Men wear a seamless two-piece white garment, symbolising a state of purity and emphasising their unity regardless of social status or nationality.

Women also generally wear white, exposing only their faces and hands.

Commandos, helicopters stand by

The passage to Mina marks the official start of the Hajj on the eighth day of the Muslim calendar month of Dhul Hijja.

In Mina, they will pray and rest before moving on to Mount Arafat for the climax of the pilgrimage rituals on Friday.

Security has not noticeably increased around the holy sites, but an AFP reporter observed three checkpoints between Jeddah and Mecca, where security officers verify that visitors hold Hajj permits.

Officials say they have intensified efforts to stop people attending Hajj without authorisation, as part of safety measures for such a large gathering with massive logistical challenges.

The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said more than 145,000 unauthorised pilgrims have been turned away.

Eighteen aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters will patrol and be on standby for emergencies including “terrorist attacks”, Arab News reported.

“The aircraft are equipped with thermal cameras and shooting platforms,” the newspaper quoted General Mohammed Eid al-Harbi as saying.

Saudi news channel Al Ekhbariya has broadcast footage of commandos rappelling from helicopters and performing other exercises to demonstrate their readiness.

Supplementing the 85,000 security and civil defence officers who are reportedly deployed for Hajj are thousands of health workers.

While Ebola has hit Africa, most MERS cases worldwide have been in Saudi Arabia itself, home to Islam’s holiest sites.

Pilgrims from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three nations hardest-hit by Ebola which has killed more than 3,000 people in West Africa this year, have not been allowed in for the Hajj.

No Ebola cases have yet been found in the desert kingdom.

The health ministry on Wednesday announced the country’s latest MERS victim, a 43-year-old Saudi man who died in Taif, east of Mecca.

But “no infectious cases have been recorded among the pilgrims, including coronavirus [MERS]”, said Acting Health Minister Adel Fakieh in a statement carried by SPA.

He added that “the health situation of the pilgrims is reassuring”.