Riyadh

Over one million Muslims have arrived in Saudi Arabia for the annual haj pilgrimage amid tight security in the kingdom, which is battling Islamic militants. The official Saudi Press Agency said this week that 1,2-million people had arrived so far for the five-day rites which are expected to begin on December 18.

Help is being offered to Muslims afflicted by chafed thighs during the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Gazette reported on Saturday. Worshippers at the annual event are to be offered ”seamless trousers” for the first time to guard against chafing, the English-language daily said.

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday said it beheaded three men convicted of various crimes, bringing the total number of executions announced by the ultra-conservative kingdom so far this year to 101. The Interior Ministry announced in a statement that it had executed two Indian nationals for murder and one Saudi national for rape.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno signed a reconciliation accord in the Saudi Arabia capital, Riyadh, on Thursday aimed at ending tensions between their two countries. The deal commits each of the parties to refrain from supporting rebels in the other country.

A Saudi man lost part of his nose in a heated argument with his two wives because he threatened to marry a third woman, Shams newspaper reported on Tuesday. Judaie bin Salim jokingly told his wives that he would marry again if they were unable to resolve their differences over how to divide their new house, the paper said.

A Saudi court has ordered a drug user to spend six months memorising the Qur’an, but he faces a year in prison if he fails to recite the Muslim holy book by heart, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The ”alternative sentence” saves the Saudi man from Jeddah from a six-month jail term, al-Watan said.

Two jailbreaks and a series of arrests in recent months suggest that sympathy for al-Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia still runs strong despite a government crackdown, analysts said this week. The authorities in the world’s biggest oil exporter say they have seized nearly 80 al-Qaeda members or sympathisers from around the country over the last three months.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Monday Lebanon and Israel have accepted his offer to mediate the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah in July. ”The two sides have accepted the effort of the secretary general to help solve this problem,” Annan told a news conference in Saudi Arabia.

The leader of the al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia, Fahd bin Faraj al-Joweir, was among five militants killed in a shootout in Riyadh on Monday, the Saudi interior ministry announced. "Joweir (36) … had taken charge of the criminal cells," after other leading members were eliminated by security forces, the ministry said.

Muslims around the world as well as those performing the annual pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia celebrate on Tuesday the Feast of Sacrifice or Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday in the Islamic calendar. The festival is celebrated with the ritual slaughter of animals to commemorate Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son to God.

About 2,5-million Muslims from around the world began the second day of the hajj pilgrimage gathering on Monday on the Arafat Plain near Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform the most important ritual in the five-day event. Pilgrims began moving from Mina to Arafat at sunrise in buses or on foot after spending the night in tents.

Holding rainbow-coloured golf umbrellas above their heads to shade themselves from the sun, members of the Saudi royal family buried King Fahd on Tuesday in an unmarked grave at a public cemetery in Riyadh.