Jordan Times Assad humiliated Blair, says British press LONDON (AFP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad dealt a severe blow to Britain's bid to shore up the Middle East peace process and international coalition against terrorism during Prime Minister Tony Blair's historic visit to Damascus, the press here concluded on Thursday.

“Assad ambushes Blair,” read the front-page headline in the right-of-centre The Times.

“Syria's Assad humiliates PM with attack on West and Israel,” said the left-leaning Guardian, adding along with the right-wing Daily Telegraph that Blair had suffered a “public dressing down.”

After meeting Blair on Wednesday, Assad told a joint press conference that while there was international terrorism there was also “Israeli terrorism” against the Palestinians.

He also implicitly criticised Washington's leading role, and its strategy, in the “war on terrorism” it declared in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The Times said Blair's dual mission had hit “severe trouble” after being “confronted with the full ferocity of Muslim opposition to the war in Afghanistan.”

In a strong attack, the Telegraph's editorial said the trip had been “ill-advised” and had “weakened the allied campaign.”

Blair “visited Bashar Assad's souk ... and, like many naive Western tourists before him, ended up being fleeced by the local merchants,” it added.

The Guardian said “the chasm between the West and Muslim states over the definition of terrorism and the role of Israel showed the daunting scale of Mr. Blair's mission.”

The Independent simply called Blair's visit a “diplomatic embarrassment.”

After meeting Assad, Blair flew to Riyadh where he held talks with Saudi King Fahd, in which the prime minister said the two countries had reached agreement to work for a broad-based government in a reconstructed Afghanistan.

Blair's Middle East visit is his fourth big foreign shuttle trip since Sept. 11 aimed at shoring support for the war in Afghanistan.

He has been to Berlin, Paris, New York, Washington, an EU summit in Brussels, then to Moscow, Islamabad and New Delhi, and on a third round which took in Oman and Egypt.

Britain has played a mainly logistical role in the war in Afghanistan, although British submarines have twice fired cruise missiles — the only direct European role in the attacks.

Washington and London say Saudi-born Osama Ben Laden is behind Sept. 11 and are waging war in Afghanistan because its Taleban regime harbours the prime suspect.

Blair's Mideast tour will be a flop — Iraqi paper

Meanwhile, the mouthpiece of Iraq's ruling Baath Party predicted on Thursday that Blair's current Middle East tour aimed at rallying support for the US-led strikes on Afghanistan will end in failure.

“We expect nothing but failure, despite the promises he might receive during his tour,” Ath Thawra said.

Blair's trip aims at “containing the Arab public's anger at Zionist terrorism in Palestine and the crusade being waged against Afghanistan,” the paper said.

“It is also designed to secure an Arab-Islamic cover for the aggression against Afghanistan,” it said in a reference to the US-British bombing of the country, which began Oct. 7.

In order to achieve his goals, Blair will make “empty promises, coupled with implicit and explicit threats,” Ath Thawra said.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2001