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Posted on 10/08/2001 5:06:05 PM PDT by Pokey78

AMERICA'S most important Arab allies kept an embarrassed silence yesterday, reflecting the unease that the military strikes have caused.

Even the fiercely pro-Western Kuwait said Arabs and Muslims could not watch the operations in Afghanistan without "a heavy heart".

But as thousands of students protested in Cairo universities, the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia pretended that nothing unusual was going on. Some smaller Gulf sheikhdoms expressed qualified support for the American war on terrorism.

Qatar, which chairs the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference and will hold an emergency meeting of Muslim ministers tomorrow, said terrorists should be put on trial.

Further south in Bahrain, headquarters of the American 5th Fleet, Sheikh Khalifa bin Sulman al-Khalifa, the prime minister, said: "Bahrain reiterates its support to the international community's move to fight terrorist elements based on its firm stand against all forms of terrorism.

"At the same time, Bahrain is keen along with all those with goodwill in the world that the peaceful and brotherly Afghan people should not be punished for acts outside their free will."

Iran, Afghanistan's neighbour, led the outright condemnation of the attacks. In an address to clerics punctuated with ritual cries of "Death to America, Death to Israel", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said: "We condemn the attack on the country and the people of Afghanistan."

Iraq chimed in with anti-American rhetoric. Naji Sabri, the foreign minister, said: "We are at the brink of a big war being launched first against Islamic states and Muslim people and there are threats against other Muslim countries and people."

The Babel newspaper, run by Saddam Hussein's son Uday, wrote: "The US aggression on Afghanistan, after those on Iraq and Palestine, is a form of organised terrorism against the peaceful peoples of the world and it will have to assume the consequences."

Syria's media questioned America's "double standards", saying Israel should be the next target. Many newspapers expressed worry about what will happen if the operation against Osama bin Laden is successful. "The worst thing would be bin Laden becoming a symbol like other enemies of the United States," said the Beirut newspaper An-Nahar.

In Jordan, Al-Dustour wrote: "We are afraid that the United States will develop its military plans to involve areas outside Afghanistan and attack some Arab countries on the Defence Department's terrorist list."

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