Fear and terror in Aleppo

“Iran opens fire on Annan’s mission,” reads the dramatic headline in Al-Hayat, a liberal London-based daily, on Monday. All eyes seem to be on a new lethal series of explosions rocking Syrian cities.

The daily focuses on apparent Iranian attempts to thwart Annan’s diplomatic mission in Syria, quoting the the Iranian foreign affairs adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, as saying that Annan’s mission was “disloyal.” Al-Hayat comments that the Iranian intervention casts doubt on the expected level of cooperation between Syria and the international delegation led by Annan.

The Syrian opposition is blaming the government for the explosions that occurred Sunday in Aleppo and Saturday in Damascus, saying it was intent on sowing fear in the heart of the population in order to spread a sense of chaos and loss of control, Al-Hayat reports. The government, for its part, blames an unnamed “terrorist group” for the explosion.

“Explosions rock Aleppo, and Assad’s thugs repress demonstrators in Damascus,” reads the headline in A-Sharq Al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned daily published in London. The daily features a photo of a hand-drawn poster in a demonstration near Idlib, depicting Assad sitting under an umbrella that reads “secure zone” with the flags of Israel, the US, Russia and the European Union, indicating that these countries are all keeping Assad in power.

The Syrian daily Al-Watan goes so far as to blame the Gulf states for perpetrating the attacks, following a decision by Gulf Cooperation States (GCC) to close their embassies in the capital, Damascus.

Arab news channels Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera are focusing on the heroic side of matters, reporting “fierce battles” between government and opposition forces in various neighborhoods of the capital. A reporter for Al-Jazeera near Homs, possibly an amateur, interviews a tank commander moments after defecting from the Syrian army, driving his crew to an area controlled by rebel forces. He claims he decided to leave the army after receiving orders to shoot at civilians and at mosques.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera is leaking documents from Syria’s crisis management team attained through the team’s information officer, who defected. The documents reveal orders sent to the Syrian army to shut roads leading to the capital on the eve of every Friday, in order to prevent protesters from reaching Damascus for Friday demonstrations.

Al-Qaeda acts up in Yemen and Iraq

Al-Qaeda has killed an American teacher in the county of Ta’az in southern Yemen, blaming him for Christian proselytizing. The organization had kidnapped a Swiss woman, holding her hostage in return for Al-Qaeda prisoners in Yemeni jails, Al-Hayat reports.

A Yemeni official tells A-Sharq Al-Awsat Monday of government fears that the city of Ta’az may fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda, based on information that dozens of the organization’s operatives are in the city.

Meanwhile, Iraqi merchants in the northern city of Mosul tell Al-Hayat that the state is unable to protect them and they are forced to pay “protection money” to Al-Qaeda.

One merchant, Abd Al-Karim Hadidi, tells the daily that the city is divided in two: one part lives under military protection in so-called “Green Zones” and is safe from terrorism, while the other part is left victim to activists of the “Islamic State” who impose religious levies on them.

Egyptian Copts pay last respects to their pope

The body of Pope Shenouda III, who passed away on Saturday, was laid in full garb in the St. Mark’s cathedral in the Abbasiya neighborhood of Cairo as thousands of believers passed by to pay their last respects.

The event is gaining wide coverage in Arab press, which reports that he will be buried in Alexandria on Tuesday.

Al-Jazeera reminds its readers that Shenouda had a falling-out with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat following the Camp David peace accords with Israel, which he believed mistreated Christians in Jerusalem.

Shenouda’s position granted him a warm eulogy by the Muslim Brotherhood’s speaker of parliament, Saad Katatni: “His holiness lived and died as a loyal patriot, and we remember his famous positions against the Zionist occupation of Jerusalem.”

One mourner, standing outside the church, told Saudi-owned news website Elaph that Shenouda guaranteed the safety of Copts in an unstable Egypt.

“Pope Shenouda was a security valve for Copts and for all of Egypt. Today we fear we will fall into civil strife.”

Abd Al-Bari Atwan, the Arab nationalist editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, euligizes Shenouda on the front page as well.

“No Coptic leader in the past five decades, or perhaps more, enjoyed the honor and appreciation that Pope Shenouda did by Muslims and Christians in the Arab world,” writes Atwan. He says he met the pope once on the way to a conference on Jerusalem, and thanked him for his steadfastness in protecting the city and banning Christian pilgrimages to it.

“In a time when Egyptian hypocrisy was at its height, praising the visit of Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and signing the humiliating Camp David accords, Pope Shenouda stood like a man adopting a historic position, and opposed the visit.”

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