REVULSION and anger reverberated across the Arab and Muslim world after the publication of photographs of British soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners. Commentators said that the revelations would tarnish the image of the British Army, whose conduct had been viewed as better than that of the American Armed Forces.

Pan-Arab TV channels such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya have made the abuse charges a talking point across the Gulf, but the impact of the photographs was softened because attention in the Middle East was focused on the climax yesterday of the annual Haj pilgrimage and the ensuing holiday, which means that some papers will not be published tomorrow or on Saturday.

Many newspapers simply ran the story as a news item. Most Egyptian papers carried it on inside pages. Some in the region did not mention it at all.

The editor of one Saudi newspaper said that he had deliberately suppressed the story because millions of Muslims from around the world were in the kingdom for the Haj and he did not want to inflame passions.

“I did not want to offend them and incite them,” Khaled al-Maaena, the Editor of Arab News, an English-language daily, said. “My staff had wanted to use them [the photographs] but I said, ‘No: today is a holy day and millions of Muslims are praying for peace’. “I am sure that 99 per cent of the British soldiers are much better than these rats [those accused of abuse].”

Elsewhere in the world, coverage of the abuse allegations was surprisingly muted, with many newspapers burying reports of the court martial in the inside pages.

The trial received minimal coverage in the US amid celebrations of the presidential inauguration. The New York Times published one photograph above a few paragraphs of news agency copy and CNN briefly mentioned it in its morning broadcast. The Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and the Charlotte Observer, carried only brief stories.

While the story was relatively prominent on al-Jazeera, it was only the third item on Tuesday night’s headline news. The station edited out at least two of the pictures, which depicted simulated sex acts between Iraqi prisoners. However, the channel appeared to be impressed by the wide coverage and soul-searching in Britain. Al-Watan, a leading Saudi paper, ran the story on its front page with one of the abuse photographs. Al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based pan-Arab daily, also led with the story. Abdelbari Atwan, the Editor, said: “What we have noticed is that we are exchanging a brutal, barbaric dictatorship [in Iraq] with a brutal, barbaric occupation.”

He added that many Arabs believed that Britain, with its historical ties to the Middle East and deeply rooted demo-cracy and tradition of human rights, had a better understanding of Arab sensitivities and culture than distant America.

Mr Atwan doubted that people across the region would accept the claim that the accused were just a few bad apples. “When they talk about human rights and democracy, people will say: ‘This is a joke.’ ” He added: “This will definitely endanger British lives.”

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