EXCITEMENT YES...

But reason for caution as well.

Waving banners and banging drums, the first batch of Iraqi Muslim pilgrims have begun leaving for Saudi Arabia on the first haj pilgrimage since Saddam Hussein's fall.

Hundreds of joyful pilgrims gathered in northern Baghdad amid heightened security for the journey that will first take them to Iraq's former foe, Kuwait, before heading on to Islam's holiest cities.

"The pilgrims are so happy this year, the old and the young will be able to go," said Hayder Mehdi, an Iraqi man in his 30s who was among the first to leave. Only elderly pilgrims were allowed to make the journey during more than a decade of sanctions imposed on Iraq before last year's U.S.-led war.

U.S. officials have said Iraqi border guards will be on heightened alert during the haj season to prevent militants from entering the country in the guise of returning pilgrims.

The haj, a pilgrimage to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina that all able-bodied Muslims are required to perform at least once in their lifetime, is due to begin in early February and lasts for up to two weeks...

During the 1990s, more than 2,000 people died performing the pilgrimage, mainly from being stampeded in the huge, swarming crowds. In the haj's worst tragedy, more than 1,400 pilgrims were killed in 1990 in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.