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Iranian radio accused the western media of showing pictures from the video for propaganda purposes.


"As a result, the issue of Iraqi prisoners' torture has been totally ignored by these media," the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran said.


"The American authorities too, have entered this news-making propaganda. These authorities have described the killing method of the American national as loathsome, and implicitly indicated that the American troops were justified to torture Iraqi prisoners."


Arab media reacted cautiously to the execution, with some newspapers conspicuously playing it down or even ignoring it.





Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, the big two satellite networks, aired edited snippets of the video. "The news story itself is strong enough," said Jihad Ballout, spokesman for Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television. "To show the actual beheading is out of the realm of decency."

Egypt's leading daily, Al-Ahram, ignored the beheading Wednesday. An editor said the news came too late for the paper to confirm the video's authenticity with the U.S. government.

Newspapers in Syria, where the government controls the press tightly, did not report the execution at all.

Five of Kuwait's seven dailies published the report with photographs on their front pages. The other two published brief reports. The Al-Siyassah daily ran two photos, including one with a masked militant holding up Berg's severed head.

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