RIYDAH, September 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz urged Saudi teachers to avoid promoting what he termed "extremist concepts" in the kingdom, in a step seen as a new Saudi effort to introduce reforms to the education system, blamed for inciting militancy.

Some education officials, however, dismissed the possibility of changing the education system in the near future due to the "extremists' control" over the education ministry.

"The first thing teachers should do is serve religion and the homeland, nothing else - neither serving terrorism nor external principles that come to us and which we don't accept," Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted the Saudi Crown Prince as telling education ministry officials and school heads during a meeting marking the new academic year Sunday, September 5.

Abdullah urged the Saudi teachers to stick to the teachings of the Noble Qur'an and the Sunna (Prophet Muhammad's sayings), warning them against covering up extremist activities in the kingdom.

"But this is the Qur'an and Sunna, no more. As to the interpretations of Islamic teachings, you know better than most what they have led to," Abdullah said.

"I think some of you know about certain things (extremist activities by teachers) but try to cover up a bit," Abdullah said.

"But there's no room for that. This is a question of life or death, of a country, and before that of a religion," he said.

The Western countries, especially the United States, have been criticizing the Saudi educational system for allegedly fueling up extremism that led to the September attacks on New York and Washington, in which 15 of the 19 presumed planes hijackers were Saudi.

Saudi King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, for his part, urged education officials to stick to the merciful teachings of Islam and combat any extremist activities that might harm the kingdom's interests.

"We are a Muslim nation. A Saudi person, man or woman, should be filled with belief in God," said the monarch.

Some Saudi officials, however, doubted the possibility of introducing reforms to the educational system in the near future due to the control of the so-called Islamists over the education ministry.

“I don’t think there’s hope for change in the near future because Islamists control the education authority," a headmistress of a Saudi all-female state school told AFP, on conditions of anonymity.

“All influential positions in the ministry of education are held by Islamists,” she said.

“Our curricula is full of texts inciting hatred, not only towards other religions but also other Muslim sects,” she added.

Saudi Arabia has been witnessing a spate of killings and kidnapping of foreigners in the kingdom, blamed for extremists.

There have been frequent shootouts in which both security men and militants have been killed or wounded, including one in August 2003 in the same neighborhood where a clash occurred last Thursday, leading to the death of three policemen and the arrest of seven suspects.

Hundreds of "suspected militants" have also been detained.