Earlier this week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused Riyadh of “murdering” Iranian pilgrims during last year’s Hajj stampede, during which hundreds of pilgrims were killed.
Advertisement
Iran’s outburst was responded to in similarly strong language in an explosive statement issued yesterday by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdulaziz Al Al-Sheikh.
This year, for the first time in three decades, Iran will not send pilgrims to Mecca after accusing the Saudi authorities of “murdering” injured pilgrims during the stampede.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) denounced Iranian accusations today that have sharply attacked Saudi Arabia over the annual Islamic pilgrimage, the Hajj.
Saudi Arabia is carrying out an investigation into the tragedy.
According to an Associated Press count 2,426 pilgrims were killed in last September’s hajj stampede, among them 464 Iranians.
“Some experts maintain that the events were premeditated”, he writes, then becoming such an “expert”: “The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers- instead of providing medical treatment and helping them or at least quenching their thirst”. Dana website accused Rafsanjani of “pursuing relations with Saudi Arabia and reaching out to a country that has conducted the most oppression against the rights of Muslims and Iran”.
Iran has repeatedly criticized the Saudi rulers for falling short of ensuring the safety of Hajj pilgrims.
“We must understand that they are not Muslims, as they are the descendants of the Magus, and their animosity towards Muslims – especially the Sunnis – is very ancient,”Grand Mufti Abd al-Aziz Al ash-Sheikh said”.
“This incident proves once again that this cursed, evil family does not deserve to manage the holy sites”, Khamenei said. It was the last Hajj flight from India to Saudi Arabia.
The spat highlights the deep sectarian and strategic rivalry between Shiite-led Iran and the Sunni royal family of Saudi Arabia.
This year pilgrims from Iran will be unable to attend the hajj, which officially starts on September 11, after talks between the two nations on arrangements broke down in May.
Tensions between the two countries have been rising since Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January following the storming of its embassy in Tehran.
“Instead of apology and remorse and judicial prosecution of those who were directly at fault in that horrifying event, Saudi rulers- with utmost shamelessness and insolence- refused to allow the formation of an global Islamic fact-finding committee”.
The hajj is a religious pilgrimage to Islam’s most holy sites that every Muslim is obligated to undertake at least once in their lives.
Advertisement
Iranians are predominantly Shi’a Muslim.
