RIYADH Dec 5: Religious scholars need to do a lot more to handle the rise of militancy among the Saudi youth, Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz said on state television.

“All our clerics must act because it is their role to correct the convictions in the minds of youth everywhere and to be constructive and not the instruments of destruction,” the prince said in his telecast comments.

“Unfortunately, hostile forces have managed to infiltrate into some Muslim ranks and mobilise them to do acts against Muslims, and this is regrettable,” he said.

The statement came against the backdrop of an announcement that 136 militants were arrested over the last two months, who were planning terror missions in various parts of the Kingdom and abroad. Some of these arrested militants were caught in possession of religious edicts from some clerics justifying their acts.

These arrests were announced just before the Haj this year, which would be falling at the end of this month. In order to ensure a foolproof security during Haj, when the entry and exit of militants in and out of the Kingdom becomes considerable, is a cause of concern to the Saudi authorities. They are not leaving anything to chance.

Expatriates without Haj permits have already been banned from entering the holy sits from the next week.

The Saudi authorities have also been working on fighting this problem at the ideological levels too. According to government sources a ‘correction programme’ undertaken by some of the leading religious scholars on behalf of the government has reformed over 700 Saudi men who believed in the “takfiri” ideology supposed to be behind the current militancy in the Kingdom.

Takfiri is a term used for groups or people who brand Muslim governments or ordinary Muslims as infidels because of policies, behaviour or beliefs.

A member of the committee tackling this problem says that many young people were attracted to radical Islamist ideology through preachers' sermons and lectures, as well as religious edicts posted on the Internet and in books.

The government has also undertaken a programme to educate imams of mosques. They have been told to limit their sermons to religious issues.