The White House Monday praised Vice President Joe Biden for being big enough to admit his mistakes, after he apologized to two key allies over an embarrassing diplomatic gaffe on the Middle East.

Biden called leaders in the two states, key members of the U.S. coalition taking on the Islamic State group, after he was quoted as saying that they had financed and armed the Sunni jihadists.

Raising his arm, Yousef Ali hugs his elderly father in front of one of Islam's holiest sites as they grin for a selfie -- a craze that has hit this year's hajj.

But not everyone is happy about young pilgrims from around the world constantly snapping "selfies", photographs taken of one's self, as they carry out the rites of hajj which are the high point of a Muslim's spiritual life.

The United Arab Emirates has expressed surprise after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden suggested the Gulf state had armed and financed jihadists in Syria, along with other regional powers.

Biden's remarks were "amazing and ignore the role of the Emirates in the fight against extremism and terrorism," the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Mohammad Gargash, said in a statement carried late Saturday by the official WAM news agency.

Two million Muslims ritually stoned the devil Saturday in the last major ritual of this year's hajj in Saudi Arabia, while fellow believers around the world celebrated Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice.

The stoning took place in Mina, about five kilometers (three miles) east of the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca.

Aircraft from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined U.S. warplanes in a new wave of bombing raids Friday against Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

Coalition fighter jets and robotic drone planes conducted six strikes in Syria on Thursday and Friday, hitting militant tanks, oil refineries and a training camp, the U.S. military said.

Muslim leaders must strike the enemies of Islam with "an iron hand," Saudi Arabia's top cleric said during Friday prayers, in apparent condemnation of the Islamic State jihadist group.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh's comments came after Saudi Arabia and four other Arab nations joined the United States in aerial bombardment of the IS militants in Syria.

Instability in Yemen, where Shiite rebels overran the capital last week, threatens regional security, interior ministers of the Sunni-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council said after an emergency meeting on Wednesday.

The United States plans to sell Patriot missile batteries to Saudi Arabia worth $1.75 billion and long-range artillery to the United Arab Emirates valued at about $900 million, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The Defense Department informed Congress of the potential arms sales this week as fighter jets from both of the Gulf states took part in a U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria.

Gunmen have opened fire on a Saudi checkpoint in a Shiite village in the Gulf state's oil-rich Eastern Province, wounding a policeman, police said on Tuesday.

The attack in Awamiya came at around midnight on Monday, state news agency SPA cited the province's police spokesman as saying.

As they gather in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca for the annual hajj, some pilgrims have denounced atrocities by Islamic State group jihadists as "a virus" threatening the world.

But many also expressed concerns about the U.S.-led air war against them.