BAGHDAD, 26 January 2003 — A first group of some 600 Iraqis set off aboard buses yesterday for the annual pilgrimage to Makkah, a road journey of several days.
Minister of Religious Endowments Abdul Moneim Ahmad Saleh and other senior official turned out to see off the convoy of 15 vehicles.
Around 14,000 Iraqis are due to perform the Haj, which falls in the second week of February.
According to Saudi Haj Minister Iyad Madani, 9,000 of the Iraqi pilgrims will fly to the Kingdom. The United Nations authorized Iraqi pilgrim flights for the first time in 2000.
Since then, only a few hundred Iraqi pilgrims traveled to Jeddah by air and the rest entered the Kingdom by land through the Arar border post, which was officially reopened in October.
Saleh did not say if Iraq intends to send any pilgrims by plane. Iraq’s quota of pilgrims is set at 25,000, but normally the number of those who actually travel is lower due to the difficult economic conditions resulting from the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq since 1990.
Many analysts have said the United States, massing forces in the region, could launch an invasion of Iraq in the second half of February over weapons of mass destruction it says Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is hiding. (Agencies)
