Iran’s response to Haj tragedy is an unacceptable interference

What the Arabic media is saying about the Mina stampede.

A pilgrim searches for a relative who was injured in the stampede in Mina. (Mohammed Al Shaik / AFP)

The Haj stampede last Thursday, which left more than 750 pilgrims dead and hundreds more injured, was a tragedy. An inquiry into its causes was announced immediately after the event.

The Saudi government had been criticised in some quarters over the organisation of the annual pilgrimage.

None of this criticism was more strident than that from Iran, which has called on the kingdom to apologise and made an offer to handle the future organisation of the Haj instead.

The Saudi columnist Abdullah bin Bijad Al Otaibi noted in the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat that stampedes had happened in the past for various reasons, despite organisational measures that have kept such incidents to a minimum.

“But, historically, there has been one specific entity that has sought to mar Haj and target pilgrims, exploiting the season for its own political interests and revolutionary slogans,” the writer said. “It is the Islamic Republic in Iran.

“Many people still recall how, in 1987, Iran ordered their pilgrims from the Republican Guard to attack and kill other pilgrims using knives and iron rods. Saudi Arabia was able to protect the pilgrims and deter Iranian terrorism at the time.

“Iran is a vicious enemy that has not tried to conceal its hostility towards Saudi Arabia ever since it started its sectarian and fundamentalist revolution.”

The writer said that Iran had become more hostile than ever since Saudi Arabia’s emergence as a regional leader, contesting its clout. Al Otaibi said Iran continued to interfere in the region, including an expansion project in Yemen using military force.

Although less outspoken than Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam groups in general were “sworn enemies of Saudi”, the writer said. This was especially the case following the kingdom’s efforts to support the Egyptian people and free their country from the Brotherhood’s grip.

Mahmoud Al Rimawi wrote in the Sharjah-based daily Al Khaleej that no one was as shocked to hear of the deaths in Mina as the Saudi people and the kingdom's government, which is entrusted with organising the Haj season.

This was especially so because the tragedy followed an earlier incident involving a crane that killed more than 100 pilgrims in the first week of September.

“Amid all this, discordant voices were heard trying to exploit the stampede to point the finger at Saudi Arabia and hold it responsible,” the writer said.

It was, he said, as if the organisers themselves intentionally sought to spoil all the efforts they had made to organise the Haj.

Those who criticised the Saudis were “hostile powers” attempting to undermine the kingdom’s standing in the Islamic world and to “wage systematic venomous campaigns against it just because it defends the sovereignty and independence of other Islamic nations”.

A tragedy of this magnitude should have given rise to solidarity among Muslims, and support for an efficient and prompt investigation into the incident, rather than to discord.

The cheap, politicised reactions that followed the tragedy were at the expense of the feelings of the victims’ families and at the expense of the truth that has yet to be revealed, the writer said.

For his part, Abdullah Nasser Al Otaibi wrote in an opinion article in Al Hayat that the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, went too far with his attack on Saudi Arabia when he suggested that the Iranian armed forces are prepared to defend the holy sites if need be. This is a call that resonates with known opponents of Saudi in Iraq, the writer said.

“Former Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al Maliki’s political bloc and ideological base in Iraq, along with the ayatollahs of the Farsi state east of the Arabian Gulf, have a vested interest in undermining and besieging Saudi Arabia internationally by breaking the privilege that was bestowed upon it as the host of the two holy mosques,” he said.

“This, in turn, would undermine the kingdom’s clout in the Islamic world and detach the world’s Muslims from it.”

Saudi Arabia remains the main obstacle to Iranian ambitions in the region because it has spearheaded the alliance fighting against the Islamic Republic’s political expansion.

The Saudis are now required to protect their country from within against foreign conspiracies, the writer noted.

Translated by Racha Makarem