Decrease in number of Muslims from USA to Saudi Arabia

An official source at the Saudi embassy in Washington has unveiled that it seems there is a great recession in the number of Muslims, residents in the US who intend to perform al-Haj rituals for this year. The source attributed this decrease of the possibility of preventing them by the American authorities to return back to the US once again.

The source added that the events of September 11 and the clear recession in the economy had a negative impact on the number of visas issued for pilgrims for this year, in comparison with the continues increase in previous years in the number of pilgrims in the number of pilgrims which used to exceed 20% annually.

The source stressed to the Saudi daily al-Madina issued on Thursday that number of pilgrims in 2001 from the US reached 10854 and expected that this number will be reduced by 30% for this year, 2000.