BBC Monitoring

The testimonies given by the US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, to the House of Representatives Committee on Monday 10 September were relayed live by the following TV stations: the privately-owned Iraqi Al-Sharqiyah TV; the government-owned Iraqi station Al-Iraqiyah TV; Al-Jazeera (in both Arabic and English); Al-Arabiya TV; and the Tehran-based Arabic-language Iranian Al-Alam TV.

Apart from Al-Jazeera English, which interviewed a number of analysts half-an-hour into the testimony, none of the stations interrupted their live coverage.

Other countries in the Middle East and North Africa reacted differently to the event. Some ignored it completely, a few reported on it factually and the rest carried lengthy reports which were on the whole critical of US policy. The following is a sample of reactions in broadcast and print media in Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Syria: