Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has traditionally found considerable support in Africa and the Arab world, but there are growing signs in some quarters of the media that the tide of opinion is beginning to turn against him.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir last week over war crimes in Darfur, a decision that some analysts fear could spark more regional turmoil. Khartoum has already responded by kicking out 13 major foreign aid agencies.

In the African media, there are still many who call into question the ICC's right to issue a warrant and accuse the West of massive hypocrisy.

"As things stand the body count in Iraq and surrounds is far in excess of anything that Bashir is accused of and yet somehow those charges are hardly receiving anything like the same attention," writes Mike Trapido, on South Africa's Mail and Guardian website.

But there are also a growing number of commentators asking African leaders to do more to put pressure on the indicted president.

"The African countries must take the lead in pressuring the Sudanese regime to let charity missions and peacekeeping troops operate unhindered," says an editorial in Kenya's Daily Nation.

"They (African countries) must make it clear to Al-Bashir if the innocent people of Darfur remain under the threat of genocide and extermination, Africa will not stand idly by, but will fully support the warrant of arrest and take whatever measures necessary to see it effected," the paper urges.

"All African leaders who support Mr Bashir must realise that their own hands could be stained by the blood of the Darfur people."

Uganda's New Vision predicts that pretty soon African leaders will be rushing to distance themselves from Bashir rather than support him.

"Make no mistake about the impact of the issuance of the arrest warrant for Bashir. At the very minimum it tells the world that Bashir is a tainted man, one in whose company any self-respecting leader must never be caught dead," the New Vision editorial says.

"Indeed, with time, the chorus of support for the Sudanese leader heard in many African capitals last week will quietly die away, replaced by polite avoidance," the editorial predicts.

The paper also adds that many heads of government will now begin to scrutinise their own human rights records and policies.

In the Arab world, a similar trend is emerging, writes Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times.

"If you look closely - okay, very, very closely - you see some fissures between Sudan and the larger Arab community, which previously was stalwart in supporting President Bashir," he says.

There seems to be some support for this view, in the Arab media accessible in English at least.

"As can be expected, pundits in the Arab world are leaping to their microphones to defend the presumed butcher of Darfur by claiming the ICC is acting out on orders from the CIA, the Mossad and, the usual ridiculous rhetoric that is typically associated in defending the enemies of democracy," says an editorial in the Middle East Times.

"The Arab world should stop fighting the demons that live within many; and start to embrace the rulings of the ICC. It is a guarantee that even the most ruthless of dictators cannot remain immune to the extremely long arm of the law. Especially when it comes in the form of an international court," the paper urges.

This view is echoed by Tariq Alhomayed, Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat.

"When Ali Larijani (secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council until his recent resignation) says that the targeting of the Sudanese President is an insult to Muslims, it raises the following questions: aren't the people, or let us say victims, of Darfur also Muslims? Isn't it insulting to "Islamic" Iran to approve of this kind of tyranny against the people of Darfur?" Alhomayed writes.

"And when Hamas defends al Bashir, reminding the Arab leaders of Saddam Hussein's fate, it raises the following questions: what about Saddam Hussein's Iraqi victims? What about what he did to Iraq during all those years as ruler until he was found in that infamous pit? What about his Arab victims?"

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