By ARAB NEWS

MINA: Crown Prince Naif, deputy premier and minister of interior who is also chairman of the Supreme Haj Committee, has congratulated Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah on the successful arrival of a record number of pilgrims for this year’s Haj.

“This is the first time in the history of Haj that the number of foreign pilgrims reached the record number of 1,828,195, exceeding last year’s figure by 1.5 percent, an increase of 27,274,” the crown price said in a cable sent to the king, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Friday.