All newspapers in the region splashed their front pages with photos of US troops entering Baghdad virtually unopposed Wednesday and the toppled statue of President Saddam Hussein in the capital's Al-Fardus (Paradise) Square.

The Lebanese press was perplexed by the regime's fall, with some speculating about a secret deal between the United States and Iraqi leadership.

"Shock and stupor: with the devastating and disconcerting fall of Baghdad, the Pentagon strategists may have found vindication for their war," said the French-language l'Orient Le Jour in an article headlined Baghdadtown, D.C.

The paper's editorialist Issa Goraib questioned the fate of Saddam, whether he was killed, fled to his hometown of Tikrit or "negotiated his departure to some exile in return for leaving the keys of his capital in the door".

The Arabic daily Al-Liwa wondered "what happened in Baghdad," in an editorial titled "The Shock of the Fall of Baghdad: Coup or Deal?"

"Was it a last-minute deal? ... Was it a plot hatched at a tough moment? ... Was it the result of fatal differences between the regime's leaders?" asked the paper.

"This question arouses the anger and sadness of the Arab street ... but this could be the starting point of an Iraqi national resistance against the US-British occupation," it said.

"The Catastrophe of April 9, 2003," was the headline in Al-Mustaqbal, owned by Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, in reference to Al-Naqba, or what Arabs refer to as the "catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

No such regrets were echoed in the Beirut conservative daily Al-Nahar.

Its editorialist Gibran Tweini said: "Baghdad did not fall, it was the regime of Saddam Hussein that has crumbled ... A big prison has been let open allowing millions to taste liberty."

In Jordan, the press was more forward looking, calling for a quick end to US-British occupation.

"Get out of Iraq sooner than later. Leave Iraq to the Iraqis," said the English-language Jordan Times, echoing calls issued by Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as US troops consolidated their control over Baghdad.

The respected Arabic-language daily Al-Dustour was likewise adamant.

"The future of the Iraqi people cannot be left in the hands of two invading countries and its sons alone must decide their fate without interference from anyone," Al-Dustour said.

The independent daily Al-Arab Al-Youm deplored the rapid fall of Baghdad with almost no resistance and charged this was part of a US plot to isolate the Arab world to the benefit of Israel.

Baghdad "did not fall a martyr while resisting, while its women ululated like Palestinian mothers when their sons are martyred by Israeli gunfire", the newspaper said.

"We fear that this war, which is not over yet, is in the eyes of those who launched it a bridge towards dividing Iraq and isolating it from its Arab identity, ahead of isolating all Arabs from Palestine," it added.

In Syria, the ruling Baath Party's official Tishrin newspaper called on the Iraqi people to install a "democratic regime," fearing the breakup of its eastern neighbor.

"All Iraqis, all forces, currents, parties and factions need to forget the past and start working together without foreign intervention to instal a democratic regime," it said.

Syria is ruled by a rival wing of the pan-Arab Baath which also governed Baghdad until Wednesday.

In Egypt, the Arab world's most populated country and scene of fierce anti-war demonstrations, newspapers went to print before editors had time to digest the fast-rolling events in Iraq.

In the London-based Arab press, Al-Hayat's Ghassan Charbel's editorial was headlined, "Saddam Hussein: from Tikrit to the Judgement of History."

"They used to throw flowers on his statues ... where is the Republican Guard now to chase them in every direction, where is Qusay and his Special Republican Guard and where is 'Chemical Ali' to carry out a thousand Halabjas?" he asked.

Charbel was referring to the disappearance of Saddam's younger son Qusay as well as Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of the president blamed for the gassing to death of around 5,000 Kurds at Halabja on the Iranian border in 1988.

"... And Saddam Fell," was the bold headline on the front page of the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat, above a photo of his falling statue.

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