Mecca 13 Sep (ANA) - Saudi authorities deployed drones to watch over nearly 2 million pilgrims as they descended Mount Arafat on the final stages of the Haj. On foot or seated on the roofs of buses, the faithful climbed down the craggy hills outside Mecca at sunset and set out en masse for the open plateau of Muzdalifah.  The surveillance was part of stepped-up efforts to avoid a repeat of last year's crush, which killed nearly 800 pilgrims, according to the official count.  The actual death toll could have been worse, as counts by countries of repatriated bodies showed over 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians. At Muzdalifah, pilgrims collected pebbles in the dark before retreating for the night into Mina, the narrow city of air-conditioned white tents where last year's crush occurred, to throw the stones at a representation of the devil. Authorities have deployed drones to reinforce a network of electronic surveillance of the crowds that would alert authorities to intervene quickly to any incident. Saudi Arabia has said that 1.855 million pilgrims, most of them from outside Saudi Arabia, have arrived for the annual pilgrimage, a religious duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey. Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites and organising Haj, a role that Iranian authorities have challenged as part of a growing dispute over the handling of last year's disaster. The Grand Mufti, the kingdom's top religious authority, warned Iran that to disrupt the Haj would be unacceptable, in comments reported by local daily al-Okaz on Sunday. 'Any policy that aims to divert the Haj from its proper course is un-Islamic and is a criminal policy,' he was quoted as saying.(ANA)

FA/ANA/13 September 2016-----