사우디, 성지순례 안전에 10만명 투입…테러위협 긴장

사우디아라비아 정부가 오는 22일(현지시간) 시작되는 정기 성지순례(하지) 기간 테러에 대비하기 위해 대테러부대, 소방·구 조인력, 경찰 등 10만 명을 배치하겠다고 밝혔다.

만수르 알투르키 사우디 내무부 대변인은 19일 AP통신에 이런 병력 배치 계획을 밝히면서 "사우디는 수년 전부터 테러 조직의 표적이 됐기 때문에 성지순례 기간 만 반의 준비를 할 것"이라고 말했다.

사우디 내무부는 성지순례가 이뤄지는 메카 부근의 미나 계곡에 임시 상황본부 를 세우고 만일의 사태에 대비하고 있다. 이슬람 성지 메카와 메디나에는 실시간 감 시를 위해 폐쇄회로(CC)TV 5천대를 설치했다.

(Yonhap)

사우디 군경 특수부대는 앞서 전날 메카에서 모의 테러 진압 시범과 특공무술 등을 선보였다.

모하마드 빈나예프 알사우드 사우디 내무장관도 전날 "사우디 군경은 성지순례 의 순수성을 오염시키고 알라의 손님(성지순례객)을 위험하게 하는 돌출 행동을 엄 단할 것"이라고 밝혔다.

사우디 정부가 '테러'라는 단어를 쓰지 않고 우회적으로 표현했지만 최근 걸프 지역에까지 수니파 무장조직 '이슬람국가'(IS) 등 극단적 이슬람주의 무장세력이 준 동하는 데 대해 강한 우려를 표시한 셈이다.

올해 들어 사우디 내 모스크(이슬람 사원)에서만 IS와 연관된 세력이 저지른 테 러가 3건 이나 발생했다.

특히 사우디와 인접한 예멘에서 시아파 반군과 종파 간 유혈 충돌이 6개월째 진 행되는 터라 사우디 정부의 경계심이 바짝 높아졌다.

매년 정기 성시순례엔 사우디 국내외에서 무슬림 300만 명 정도가 이슬람 성지 메카와 메디나를 찾는다.

한꺼번에 좁은 공간에 사람이 몰리면서 종종 대형 압사사고가 나기도 하며 2004 년엔 성지순례객 사이에서 충돌이 벌어져 244명이 숨지는 폭력사태가 벌어졌다. (연합)

Saudi Arabia says 100,000 troops to secure this year’s hajj

Saudi Arabia has deployed 100,000 security personnel to oversee the annual Islamic hajj pilgrimage that begins on Tuesday, the Interior Ministry spokesman said, underscoring both the massive arrangements needed to secure one of the largest pilgrimages in the world and the multitude of threats the hajj faces.

“We always concentrate on hajj considering that a threat might exist,” Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said. “We’ve been targeted by terrorism for years now and we know that we are a target for terrorist groups.”

Al-Turki spoke exclusively to The Associated Press on Saturday from the Interior Ministry’s security headquarters for the hajj, located in the sprawling tent city of Mina just a few miles outside the Grand Mosque in Mecca that houses Islam’s holiest site, the cube-shaped Kaaba.

Roughly 3 million people from around the world are expected to converge at the Kaaba, in Mina and other nearby areas for the hajj, which lasts about five days. It is series of rituals meant to cleanse the soul of sins and instill a sense of equality and brotherhood. All able-bodied Muslims are required to perform the hajj once in their lives.

Members of an elite counterterrorism unit, traffic police and emergency civil defense personnel are among those deployed to help with crowd control and safety. They are supported by additional troops from the army and national guard, al-Turki said.

Inside the Interior Ministry’s nerve center, police monitor dozens of screens with feeds from about 5,000 CCTV cameras installed throughout Mecca and Medina, the two cities frequented by pilgrims.

“We’re active, we’re awake,” al-Turki said, referring to the security forces’ readiness to deal with any eventuality.

Civil defense emergency personnel were among the first responders when a crane collapsed at the Grand Mosque on Sept. 11, killing 111 people and injuring nearly 400 others who had come for the hajj. Authorities blamed the collapse on high winds and the contractor was faulted for not following operating procedures.

On Thursday, the kingdom’s military and police put on a parade in Mecca, with security forces jumping through burning hoops and thwarting a mock terrorist attack. The show was aimed at deterring any would-be troublemakers, and was attended by Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef, who himself was the target of a terrorist attack in 2009.

Saudi Arabia’s custodianship of holy sites in Mecca and Medina has long made the kingdom a target of terrorist groups who want to wrestle control of them from the kingdom’s Western-allied monarchy.

The pilgrimage this year comes as Saudi Arabia faces an expansion of Islamic State group attacks. Two Saudi suicide bombers targeted Shiite pilgrims in eastern Saudi Arabia in May, and a Saudi suicide bomber carried out a third attack in June in neighboring Kuwait. The attacks, which killed 53 people, were claimed by an IS affiliate calling itself “Najd Province,” the traditional name for the central heartland of the peninsula.

An IS-claimed suicide bombing last month in Abha, 350 miles south of Mecca, killed 15 people inside a mosque in a police compound. It was the deadliest attack on the kingdom’s security forces in years. Eleven of the dead belonged to a counterterrorism unit whose tasks include protecting the hajj.

That attack was claimed by a second alleged IS affiliate in Saudi Arabia calling itself “Hijaz Province” of the Islamic State group, in reference to the traditional name of the western stretch of the Arabian Peninsula.

Al-Turki acknowledged that this year the kingdom saw the most terrorist acts since 2003, when al-Qaida unleashed a wave of bombings that lasted for three years until its militants were driven out to Yemen where they remain active.

Little is publicly known about the structure of the Islamic State group in Saudi Arabia, such as whether militants in the kingdom have direct operational ties with the group’s leadership based in its self-declared “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria _ or if they simply operate independently in the group’s name.

Al-Turki said IS supporters in Saudi Arabia are little more than small “cluster cells” or even individuals inspired by the IS group who find one another by communicating online. He said their claims of having a province or state in Saudi Arabia is nothing more than online propaganda.

“In reality, they cannot control a centimeter anywhere in Saudi Arabia,” he said. (AP)