By Badr Almotawa, Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 18 February — Frustrated Afghans waiting to fly to the Kingdom to make the pilgrimage won new hope yesterday, as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd ordered Saudi planes to airlift them to Jeddah. A total of 562 pilgrims arrived here yesterday on two Saudi Arabian aircraft. They are among the 5,000 pilgrims to be airlifted from Kandahar by Saudi planes as per the king’s directives.

Ata ur-Rahman Saleem, head of the Afghan Haj mission in Makkah told Arab News that he will meet with Dr. Ali Al-Khalaf, chief of the Presidency of Civil Aviation, to discuss arrangements to airlift pilgrims from Kandahar.

Pakistan also sent a plane to collect 270 pilgrims and Afghan and Saudi officials said they were working to provide more flights.

Around 8,000 frustrated pilgrims have been camped out in freezing temperatures at Kabul airport and the city’s main mosque for days waiting for flights for the journey.

Although the Kingdom had set a Saturday midnight (2100 GMT) deadline for pilgrims arriving by plane, the government had granted several exemptions, an official said.

A first group of around 890 Afghan pilgrims arrived in the Kingdom on Saturday aboard two aircraft chartered by the Afghan government.

Saudi Ambassador to Pakistan Ali Asiri said Riyadh was sending four planes to Kabul either yesterday or today to transport more pilgrims, according to the Okaz daily. Asiri arrived in Kabul yesterday and held talks with Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai.

Karzai said his government was working non-stop to provide planes for the pilgrims, who have been angered at long waits for Saudi visas and a number of cancelled flights.

He said he expected “at least 10” flights yesterday to take some of the 15,000 Afghan pilgrims. One of those flights was provided by Pakistan International Airlines, which flew into the Afghan capital for the first time in more than 20 years.

“PIA sent an Airbus ... to pick up the stranded pilgrims from Kabul following the Afghan government’s request to President Pervez Musharraf for help in its Haj operation,” PIA spokesman Mohammad Latif said. The same plane was scheduled to take the Afghan pilgrims to Jeddah, after a brief stopover in Islamabad.

PIA, which suspended flights to its turbulent neighbor after Soviet troops invaded in 1979, was scheduled to send another Airbus today to pick up 200 pilgrims, Latif said.

Karzai had asked Islamabad to transport some 500 of the pilgrims, he said.

Karzai told reporters that “some flights” left Saudi Arabia for Kabul Saturday evening but due to weather problems landed in Peshawar across the border in Pakistan.

He said his administration had been working round-the-clock to help the pilgrims make their journey. “Let’s hope the weather improves,” Karzai said. He said that in a worst case scenario, the pilgrims could be taken by land to Peshawar for flights to Jeddah.

Karzai said he had also been in contact with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and the US and British ambassadors in Kabul to assure the pilgrims would have a way to fly to Saudi Arabia.

A spokesman for the British Ministry of Defense said four C-130 Hercules aircraft would transport about 500 pilgrims to Jeddah yesterday and would repeat the operation today and tomorrow. “There is an immediate short-term need so we’ve decided to do this quick fix to relieve some of the pressure,” Paul Barnard said.

And the UAE is sending several aircraft to carry 1,000 of the pilgrims, WAM news agency reported.