Saudi authorities deployed drones to watch over nearly 2 million pilgrims as they descended Mount Arafat on Sunday, September 11 and entered the haj's final stages, part of stepped-up efforts to avoid a repeat of last year's crush amid an escalating war of words with Iran, Reuters reports.

Last year, in one of the deadliest disasters to befall the annual Muslim rite in decades, the crush killed nearly 800 pilgrims, according to Riyadh, although counts by countries of repatriated bodies showed over 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians.

On foot or seated on the roofs of buses, the faithful climbed down the craggy hills outside Mecca at sunset and set out en masse for the open plateau of Muzdalifah.

There they collected pebbles in the dark before retreating for the night into Mina, the narrow city of air-conditioned white tents where last year's crush occurred as pilgrims moved to throw their pebbles in a ceremonial stoning of the devil.

Authorities have deployed drones to reinforce a network of electronic surveillance of the crowds that would alert authorities to intervene quickly if necessary.

Saudi Arabia has said that 1.855 million pilgrims, most of them from outside Saudi Arabia, have arrived for the annual pilgrimage, a religious duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey.

Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites and organizing haj, a role that Iranian authorities have challenged as part of a growing dispute over the handling of last year's disaster.

The Grand Mufti, the kingdom's top religious authority, warned Iran that to disrupt the haj would be unacceptable, in comments reported by local daily al-Okaz on Sunday.

"Any policy that aims to divert the haj from its proper course is un-Islamic and is a criminal policy," he was quoted as saying.