Al-Wasat (Bahrain): U.S. options toward Iran tighten after intelligence report – Options before the United States toward Iran have been narrowed with the containment of the war threats on Iran and the difficulty in issuing new international sanctions following the U.S. intelligence report on Iran's nuclear military program. Middle East experts said that despite President George W. Bush's insistence on maintaining the military option, this option has effectively collapsed with the intelligence assessment.

Al-Watan (Oman): Iraq: U.S. unties private security firms and maintains the right for accountability – The U.S. departments of defense and state signed a 10-page document regarding private security firms in Iraq that allow their staff to use their weapons if they feel their lives are threatened. The document also gives the U.S. military command the authority to investigate the firms involved in such security incidents.

Ash Sharq al-Awsat (London): Bin Laden's driver first Guantanamo detainee with war prisoner status – The defense lawyers of Yemeni Salem Ahmed Hamdan, who worked as al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's driver, have received an approval to consider their client as a prisoner of war, not an enemy combatant. He thus becomes the first Guantanamo inmate to have this civilian status and will be tried as such.

al-Quds al-Arabi (London): Israel's internal security minister cancels visit to Britain to avoid arrest on war crime charges – Israel's public security minister and former head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, Avi Dichter, canceled a scheduled visit to Britain next month for fear of being arrested on charges of war crimes. Individual complaints were filed in the U.K. against Dichter for his alleged involvement in a decision to fire a one-ton bomb on a house in Gaza in 2002 that killed a Hamas activist, his wife and three children, in addition to 10 others.

As-Safir (Lebanon): Agreement on constitutional amendment expected today and presidential election next week – Lebanese and international diplomatic efforts continued late into the night to reach an agreement on amending the constitution to allow the election of army General Michel Suleiman in parliament. Politicians expected that parliament will convene Friday to amend the constitution and next week to vote for the president.