Syria sends in the tanks

The military escalation surrounding the Syrian city of Homs tops the Arab media on Wednesday. Liberal London-based daily Al-Hayat, which has so far avoided showing gruesome photographs, now displays a makeshift morgue with a row of dead bodies reportedly killed by government forces in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs. Al-Hayat’s headline reads, “Security escalation confronts the diplomatic escalation and the 4th division is in Homs.” Quoting opposition sources, the article reports that the entry of soldiers from Syria’s 4th division indicates the government’s intention “to end all forms of resistance.”

“Damascus burns again, and Clinton: ‘war criminal’ applies to Assad,” reads the headline in Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat published in London. The picture accompanying the story is of a tank advancing through the town of Saqba near Damascus. The death toll in Syria, the daily says, has already surpassed 7,500 according to the UN.

Meanwhile, Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya reports that Tunisian President Munsif Marzouqi is offering Assad and his family political asylum in Tunisia. Marzouqi first expressed his opinion favoring a political solution to the Syrian carnage in the “Friends of Syria” summit in Tunis last Friday.

Speculation rises on Israeli strike against Iran

A report in Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth saying Israel will not warn the United States before striking Iran is getting enormous coverage in the Arab press.

Nazir Majali, A-Sharq Al-Awsat’s Israel analyst, quotes an anonymous Israeli source denying the original reporting, saying that “those who believe that are ignorant of the nature of the Israeli-American relationship.”

But Saudi-owned Internet news site Elaph reports on Israeli preparations for an Iranian counter-strike on the home front. Reporter Lamis Farahat in Beirut quotes Kadima MK Ze’ev Bielsky as saying that Israeli cities are ill-prepared to withstand Iranian missiles.

Meanwhile, the prospect of a preemptive Israeli attack, with or without the knowledge of the Americans, is frightening the editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a hard-line daily published in London.

“An Israeli attack on Iran, if it occurs, will not destroy the fortified American reactors which are in the depths of the mountains, but rather American bases and interests in the region and the entire world. It is hard to believe that Iran will be an easy gulp to swallow,” writes the anonymous columnist. “Israel involved America in a failed war in Iraq and is now dragging it into a war that may be catastrophic in Iran. The price will be higher this time.”

Saudi Arabia pledges aid to Egypt

Saudi Arabia is pledging $3.75 billion in aid to Egypt, international Arab newspapers are reporting on Wednesday. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal said his country has already transferred a grant of half a billion dollars to support the Egyptian economy last May, Al-Arabiya reports. Strangely, the generous grant is scarcely being reported in Egypt’s main dailies.

The big news emanating from Egypt is a pledge by General Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, the de facto leader of the country, to run “democratic, clean and transparent” presidential elections. Al-Hayat reports that the elections will take place during the first week of June 2012. According to the daily, the elected president will be sworn in before the end of June, ending the political role of the military in the country, the army promises.

Elaph, the Saudi-owned news website, warns that the Egyptian committee tasked with drafting the new Egyptian constitution will be controlled by Islamists, mainly from the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties.

Egypt to create ‘Sinai Development Agency’

Lawlessness in the Sinai Peninsula has caused Egyptian authorities a big headache over the last few months. Arms smuggling, human trafficking and the repeated explosion of the natural gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan are only some of the problems Egyptian security has had to face.

But Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri is expected to launch the new “Sinai Development Agency” next week, a government body tasked with developing agricultural, industrial and tourism projects in the impoverished peninsula. Ganzouri and a number of ministers plan to visit Sinai in the near future and study its problems first hand, government mouthpiece Al-Ahram reports Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Ganzouri ordered ministers to strengthen police presence in Sinai and develop its basic infrastructure.