Saudis shudder over Boston report...Iraqi PM taken to task for security mayhem and Mubarak’s smile irks Arab columnists

The explosion at the Boston Marathon leads the headlines of Arab media on Tuesday, alongside reports on a series of explosions across Iraq.

“Casualties in explosions before ‘the finish line’ at the Boston marathon,” reads the headline of London-based daily Al-Hayat, which features a video grab image of the moment of the explosion.

“Two explosions shake Boston and security alert in New York and Washington,” reads the main headline of Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat.

Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera leads its coverage of the event with the statement of US President Barack Obama to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Although most media outlets avoid the Arab angle and focus on a factual description of events, largely based on news agencies and American media, Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya interviews a Saudi student in Boston who reports that “100,000 Saudis in the US shuddered” as they read the news in The New York Post that a Saudi man was being interrogated on suspicion of involvement in the blast.

The channel reports that the initial depiction of the Saudi’s investigation was erroneous; the young man himself was injured and “if he were involved he would not have remained at the site of the blast, and if he were a suicide bomber he would have perished in it,” Saudi ex-pats commented.

[link to www.timesofisrael.com]