Baba Amr falls and Iranians go to the polls
New president of Yemen removes Saleh loyalists from the army in response to pressure from military
With the fall of the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs at the hands of the Syrian army on Thursday, reports of a massacre, or of a looming one, top the Arab news Friday.
Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat’s headline reads “Baba Amr after the fall: a massacre, and wholesale executions.” The daily’s reporting relies heavily on eye-witness testimonies of opposition activists. 17 civilians are reported killed, 12 of whom were stabbed to death by knives. The opposition Free Syrian Army tells A-Sharq Al-Awsat of a “tactical withdrawal” from the city, stressing that the battle will continue until the fall of the regime.
Liberal daily Al-Hayat, published in London, is more circumspect in reporting about a massacre. It claims that the opposition has been warned of a “possible massacre,” but that the city is suffering a humanitarian crisis as a result of the prolonged military siege imposed on it.
The clear military supremacy of Assad’s forces over the opposition will cause Friday protesters to demand arming the opposition, Al-Hayat reports.
“The rifle cannot confront tanks and heavy artillery, this is a truth we must face,” writes the editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a hard-line daily published in London, in an editorial titled “Control of Baba Amr is not the end.”
“The Syrian crisis is in need of a political solution in the absence or the diminishing prospect of military intervention. This solution must fulfill the demands of the revolting Syrians for democratic change, for which they have sacrificed more than 7,500 people. There is no doubt that Russia, China and Iran can play a great role in this regard, together or separately.”
Al-Hayat columnist Hussan Haidar focuses his criticism on the United States for its “duplicitous” treatment of the Syrian crisis.
He notes that the Americans are wary of repeating the mistake they made in Iraq by dimantling the Iraqi army, turnings its soldiers into [anti-American] “warriors”, only to rebuild the army themselves.
“The Americans are sure not to repeat that mistake, especially where Israel’s security [in the Golan Heights] is at stake,” writes Haidar. “Washington has discovered that every time it withdraws from a country it loses it, like what happened in Iraq and what will happen in Afghanistan.”
Yemen purges Saleh loyalists from army
Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi has sacked senior army officers loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya reports. The channel reports that Hadi’s move is meant to reassure various national powers, especially southern separatists, that a process of change is underway.
It would seem that Hadi’s move is a response to calls from within the Yemeni military. Al-Hayat reports Friday that Yemeni officers have been protesting for two months, demanding a purge of Saleh’s men from the army. Hundreds of air force soldiers marched on Thursday from the president’s home to a nearby airbase, carrying banners calling for the dismissal of the air force commander, a half brother of Saleh’s.
High Arab interest in Iranian elections today
Arab news outlets are highly interested in Friday’s Iranian parliamentary elections, which are receiving wide media coverage.
According to Saudi-owned news website elaph, the participation rate in Friday’s elections for the Shura Council will be low, after 1200 candidates were refused the opportunity to run. 3,444 others will contest the council’s 290 seats. The main reason for the low voter turnout, the site argues, is the boycott of reformist candidates, the dominance of hardliners in the election campaign, a preemptive arrests campaign by the government and limited internet access.
A-Sharq Al-Awsat leads with a prediction by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khaminei that voting rates will be high, but Iran’s nearly 50 million voters “do not know who’s running against who and what the political differences between them are,” the daily reports.
A-Sharq Al-Awsat dedicates half of its short report to US President Barack Obama’s speech at the AIPAC conference in Washington next week, in which he is expected to deliver a “final warning” to Iran. The daily quotes an unnamed “high ranking Israeli source” expressing concern that the US may draw the wrong conclusion from North Korea giving up its nuclear program, favoring non-intervention in Iran as a result.
Al-Hayat reports that despite the absence of reformists from the Iranian elections, hardliners will battle it out on economic, military and political issues critical to the country.
With the vast majority of Friday’s opinion pieces dedicated to Syria, there is very little analysis of the Iranian elections.