Ali faces a series of operations to treat his severe burns

The plastic surgeon treating injured Iraqi orphan Ali Ismail Abbas says the 12-year-old is recovering well after his first round of treatment.

The boy lost both his arms and suffered serious burns to his upper body after his home was bombed during the coalition forces' attack on Baghdad.

Both his parents were killed in the strike, along with other relatives, and it was feared Ali could die from his injuries.

After an international appeal for help, Ali was airlifted to Kuwait where Dr Imad al-Najjadah performed the life-saving operation lasting 95 minutes on Wednesday.

Septicaemia-infected tissue was cut away from his burn wounds and temporary layer of human skin, from the clinic's skin bank, was laid across his burns to form a temporary cover.

Dr Najjadah, of the Saud A Albabtain Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery, said the boy was doing well and recovering.

"He's awake and we're changing his dressing," he said.

Further surgery

He added he hoped to perform a graft using Ali's own skin from uninjured areas such as his back on Sunday or Monday.

"At the centre for burns we receive worse cases. We have good success with people who are 80 or 90% burnt. Ali has around 35% burns," he said.

He's recovering. He will be okay Dr Imad al-Najjadah

He said it could be three weeks or more before measurements are taken to provide Ali with artificial limbs.

Ali's picture has been splashed across newspapers around the world and even UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was moved to comment on his plight.

Dr Najjadah said Ali had made progress within the first few hours of arriving in the care of the Kuwaitis.

"He is much better this morning than when he arrived," he said.

"He was pleased to see his uncle by his bedside and has even started to smile."

BBC News Online's Jonathan Duffy said the severity of Ali's burns, covering 35% of his body, may actually have helped him survive this far.

Because they are "full thickness" burns that penetrated deep into the flesh, his nerve endings in that part of the body have been severed.

Other young victims

The centre where Ali is being cared is as good - if not better - as those in many Western countries.

Opened in 1992 at Kuwait City's Ibn Sina hospital, it has 70 beds, making it the biggest burns and plastic surgery centre in the whole of the Middle East and Europe, Dr Najjadah told BBC News Online.

While Ali's injuries have shocked many around the world, the doctor says this is by no means the worst he has dealt with.

"Thirty-five per cent burns is nothing compared to what we sometimes see here - 80% or 90% burns. But even those patients can recover."

Before Ali's arrival, the centre had already taken in five Iraqi children whose injuries from the war were so severe they had to be evacuated from their home country.

One of those is four-year-old Farah Arkan al-Jebory, who suffered serious shrapnel wounds when her father's car was destroyed in another Baghdad bomb attack.

Shrapnel had severed the muscle in her right forearm, although, fortunately, it did not cut the nerves.

She also suffered multiple injuries to the abdomen in the blast, which killed a cousin of hers.

Doctors have been able to repair the damaged muscle and Farah is making a good recovery, says Dr Najjadah.