The Iraqi media - all state-run - have focused on the US dismissal of the Iraqi offer to readmit UN weapons inspectors.

The ruling Baath party paper Al-Thawrah said the US is not interested in weapons of mass destruction or the war against terror, but rather in "re-drawing the map of the Arab homeland and Central Asia to serve the US strategy of world domination".

Al-Jumhuriyah agreed, saying the US refusal has "shot down the last flimsy US excuse" and revealed what it called Washington's aim of seizing Arab oil.

It wasted no time in blaming friends of Israel for the US policy.

"US hostility will not end with the return of the inspectors," it tells Western public opinion, because "Zionism has succeeded in dominating banks, information and trade in your countries as it dominates those who govern in your names," it said.

Kurdish dilemma

The media throughout the region have been taking more interest in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish-run north and the possibility of secession, a problem likely to bedevil any post-Saddam settlement.

The Germany-based Kurdish paper Ozgur Politika said Turkey was moving large numbers of troops into northern Iraq to forestall any attempt at establishing an independent state, a report that Turkish Defence Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu dismissed.

He said the troops were there as part of an authorised Nato inspection mission, but Kurdish and Turkish worries about one another's intentions, not to mention US plans for the region, remain acute and seemingly irreconcilable.

Northern Iraq could descend into chaos Iraqi Turkmen Front

Sources in the local Kurdish Democratic Party are said to have told the Egyptian Al-Qanat website that the Iraqi opposition was in talks to cede the cities of Kirkuk and Irbil to Turkey to prevent a Turkish military intervention if Saddam is overthrown.

The opposition Iraqi Turkmen Front told the Turkish news agency Anatolia that Arab, Kurdish and other opposition groups in northern Iraq could "descend into chaos" in the event of a US attack, as Kirkuk and Irbil are claimed as Turkmen cities.

The Iranian reformist paper Hamshahri highlighted Turkey's predicament, but saw an advantage for Ankara too: "Kurdish merger plans have created panic among Turkey's policy-makers but a better opportunity for Ankara to divert people's attention from domestic affairs" in the run-up to parliamentary elections.

Iran looks on

The Iranian media remained firmly opposed to US intervention in Iraq, despite reports of an understanding between the Tehran and US Governments.

President Khatami has called on Iraq to obey UN resolutions, and distrust of Saddam Hussein endures.

The pro-reform Iran newspaper said international and regional conditions for US intervention were worse then they were 11 years ago, but not enough to stop an attack.

"America may be able to change conditions to its advantage using threats and extortion, but in any act of aggression against Iraq it will face far more problems than when it attacked Iraq's army in 1991," it said.

There are fears that a conflict in Iraq could also lead to fighting by Kurds

The hardline Jomhuri-ye Eslami was more forthright, saying "only a political illiterate" would deny that US intervention would be as disastrous for the Iraqi people as it was for Afghanistan.

A TV commentator said the whole world, including the European Union, thought the US aim was "to dominate the world and harm their interests".

The reformist Hayat-e Now came closest to suggesting that Saddam Hussein deserves removal, without specifying by whom.

"Baghdad's untrustworthiness and contradictory behaviour in recent months has left many states convinced that it deserves punishment," it said.

Saudi persuasion

The Saudi press has maintained a position of coaxing Iraq into accepting the inspectors while edging closer to support for a new US-sponsored UN resolution against Baghdad.

The Riyadh Daily said Iraq's offer was a positive step, and Arab News called on Baghdad to follow it up in good faith and not dissemble as the US has accused it of doing.

Saddam has harmed his own people, his nation and the Muslim world Al-Riyadh

Al-Riyadh was harsher in its rhetoric, but pushed the same line that Iraq still has time to redeem itself.

"Saddam has harmed his own people, his nation and the Muslim world. It is no defeat to admit to this destructive behaviour and to turn over a new leaf and solve all outstanding problems with one's neighbours," it said.

Arab disappointment

Jordan's Al-Dustur was disappointed with the US dismissal, saying "Iraq's decision has boosted the anti-war forces and given Arab and international diplomacy a new card, but the US is continuing its unilateral scheme to strike Iraq".

Syria's state-run Tishrin said Iraq's offer had "pulled the rug from under the feet of US hawks who plan to submerge the region in blood", in a near-repeat of a statement on Iraqi TV earlier in the week.

Tishrin made a linkage between the US policy towards Iraq and Israel's attacks on Palestinian autonomy.

Syria's Al-Thawrah agreed, saying "bullets and diplomacy are the same in US political thinking, which makes the whole world its victim".

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.