Miidle East/Egypt: Yasser Arafat's coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag, was carried by horse-drawn gun carriage to an Egyptian air base in a funeral ceremony on the outskirts of Cairo yesterday attended by world leaders.
The Egyptian president, Mr Hosni Mubarak, accompanied by Palestinian and Arab leaders including the Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah, led the official procession which took place with military honours.
Mr Arafat's widow Suha and their daughter Zahwa were at the ceremony. A group of Palestinian leaders, including Mr Mahmoud Abbas and Mr Farouk Kaddoumi, earlier received condolences on the death of Mr Arafat, who represented Palestinians for more than 40 years.
At least 16 heads of state and government, mostly from Arab and Muslim countries sympathetic to the Palestinians, attended.World leaders included the South African president, Mr Thabo Mbeki, King Abdullah of Jordan, the Lebanese president, Mr Emile Lahoud and the Zimbabwean president, Mr Robert Mugabe.
Presidents and dignitaries waited in a red patterned tent as pallbearers placed the coffin, draped in the black, red, green and white Palestinian flag, on the traditional gun carriage.
After a short procession, the coffin was loaded on to a plane for the journey to Ramallah in the West Bank.
Many streets were closed off to ordinary people for the procession and were instead lined with hundreds of policemen, reflecting Egyptian concern about security for the foreign leaders. Soldiers on rooftops surveyed the area with binoculars.
Ordinary Egyptians complained that Arab rulers were too afraid of popular sentiment to let them take part. Four hundred people gathered after Friday prayers at the Azhar mosque in old Cairo shortly after kings, presidents and dignitaries attended a military funeral less than 10 km away near Cairo airport.
They wanted to protest in support of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and show their respect for the man who died in Paris on Thursday after a 50-year career promoting the Palestinian struggle for statehood.
"As usual, the Arab governments, especially Egypt, have shown they are scared of having a popular event," one of the protesters, lawyer Zyad el- Elaimy, said.
He said Arab governments feared large emotional gatherings could turn against the authorities because of popular feelings that the governments were not doing enough to aid Palestinians in their uprising against Israeli rule.
Mr Abbas has succeeded Mr Arafat as chairman of the executive committee of the PLO, while Mr Kaddoumi, a hardliner, now heads Mr Arafat's Fatah movement.
Egypt hosted the funeral because the Israeli occupation would have made it difficult for many of the foreign leaders to reach a ceremony in the Palestinian territories.
Most European governments, which have resisted US and Israeli attempts to isolate the Palestinian leader, sent foreign ministers. Israel boycotted the event and the US sent only a senior State Department official.
The presidents of Algeria, Bangladesh, Yemen and Indonesia were also there, as were the prime ministers of Turkey, Pakistan and Sweden. Many countries sent foreign ministers including the Republic of Ireland, France, Germany, Britain, Spain and Iran.