Arabic media review

Bloody Eid for Syria

Syrian mortars fall in Jordan; a plane crash kills Sudani ministers and Gaddafi’s son awaits trial next month

Elhanan Miller is the former Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel

Illustrative: Syrian President Bashar Assad performs Eid prayers in the Hamad Mosque in Damascus, August 19 (photo credit: AP Photo/SANA)
Illustrative: Syrian President Bashar Assad performs Eid prayers in the Hamad Mosque in Damascus, August 19 (photo credit: AP Photo/SANA)

The ongoing violence in Syria, unabated despite the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, is making main headlines in Arab language news Monday.

“The Syrians’ holiday is colored in blood and Shara is still missing,” reads the headline of Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat, which features a photo of Syrian President Bashar Assad praying in a small Damascus mosque, surrounded by his government officials.

‘The Syrians’ holiday is colored in blood and Shara is still missing’

The daily notes that this is Assad’s first photo outside his presidential palace since the attack on the national security building on July 18 that killed a number of his government’s officials. The prayer took place in a small mosque rather that the city’s grand Umayyad mosque, and lasted only 11 minutes, the daily notes. Assad hurried to leave as it ended.

In a separate article, A-Sharq Al-Awsat reports that the streets of Damascus are eerily empty on the holiday, in a situation the resembles a curfew. Citizens are not exchanging visits or visiting family graves, as they fear government airstrikes once they take to the streets.

“Syria on the first day of holiday: More than 100 dead,” reads the headline of London-based daily Al-Hayat, featuring a photo of childred playing with toy rifles in the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in northern Jordan.

‘If news of the defection of vice president Farouq Shara is true… the regime will have shed itself of its last “national” vestiges’

“The advent of Eid Al-Fitr did not change the daily routine of violence in Syria,” claims the article in its opening words. Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera reports 158 dead on Sunday, an unusually high number.

Al-Hayat columnist George Samaan writes Monday that the new approach of Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, to deal with Syria politically rather than from a security standpoint, is doomed to fail since the Assad regime is already on the verge of collapse.

“If news of the defection of vice president Farouq Shara is true, following the flight of the prime minister to Jordan and the imposition of house arrest on a number of Baath leaders… the regime will have shed itself of its last ‘national’ vestiges. It will no longer be able to convince the Syrians that it is defending them from ‘terrorism’ or ‘a conspiracy.’ In other words, the regime has lost its political battle, and is about to lose its military battle as well.”

A-Sharq Al-Awsat columnist Bassem Jisr calls the “civil war” raging in Syria a “time bomb for the Middle East.”

“There has been much talk recently about dividing Syria into sectarian mini-states,” writes Jisr. “There has also been talk of giving Kurds autonomy, modeled after Iraq. These are old projects which Israel vies to revive to prevent a Syrian-Egyptian siege around it. It also wants to fragment the 20 Arab country into 30 or 40 statelets which compete with each other ethnically and along sectarian lines.”

Syrian shells fall in Jordan

A number of Syrian mortar shells have landed in the Jordanian village of Tora, near the city of Ramtha Sunday, injuring a number of civilians.

Al-Jazeera reports the injury of five children, but Jordan’s official Petra news agency reports that “one girl was injured by shrapnel and four others were scared.”

Independent daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm, displaying a photo of the shrapnel held inside the palm of a man’s hand, interviews staffers at a nearby hospital who report that a girl and her mother were wounded by three falling mortar shells. Six others were reportedly suffering from shock following the incident.

Jordan filed an official complaint with the Syrian chargé d’affaires.

Plane crash in Sudan kills four ministers

A plane crash in Sudan Sunday has killed 31 government officials, including three or four ministers, Arab dailies report Monday.

The Russian-made Antonov jet was carrying the delegation to the city of Tolodi in the South Kordofan region of Sudan, where clashes have been reported between government forces and local separatists. The top minister killed in crash is named by media as religious endowments minister Ghazi Sadeq.

Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi awaits trial, possible execution

Saif Al-Islam, the son of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, is awaiting his trial, which is to begin in September in the Libyan city of Zantan.

The newly elected government in Libya reached an agreement with the militia that captured him as he was trying to flee the country last November.

The Arab coverage of the story is largely based on an article in the British Sunday Telegraph. According to the daily, if convicted, Gaddafi may be executed by hanging.

 

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