AMMAN, Jordan: Newspapers both in Iraq and wider region have roundly condemned the Baghdad barrier being built by US forces.

The press expressed fears the wall in Baghdad's Sunni district Al-Adhamiyah on a mainly Shia east bank of Tigris will turn the capital into "a big prison", aggravate tensions and trigger the construction of similar barriers elsewhere in the country.

A Syrian daily urges Iraqis to rise up and fight what it sees as part of wider US-Israeli efforts to isolate Arabs or "face extermination".

Iraq’s Ad-Dastour says the sectarian isolation wall... is a hateful gesture feared to recur and spread in Baghdad until we find ourselves in the coming days in need of visas or special permits to enter this or that area. We are not against security precautions as such... but we also hope that this will not be done at the expense of our moral and inherited values.

Another daily of Iraq Az-zaman noted that people of Al-Adhamiyah, rise up and destroy this wall... produced by Israeli factories in Tel Aviv! These are the same barriers that isolated Palestinian villages and cities from each other... under the pretext of defending Israel security. Don't forget that the Pentagon is behind the idea of establishing closed Iraqi communities with the aim of establishing sectarianism.

Jordan’s Al-Arab Al-Yawm wrote no one should keep silent about this new crime committed by the occupation in Baghdad, and all Iraqis must reject such a crime because turning Al-Adhamiyah into a big prison means that other neighbourhoods will also turn into sectarian ghettos, with Sadr city probably being next.

Pan-Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi wrote today it's Al-Adhamiyah, tomorrow it will be Basra, the day after Mosul and the day after that Kirkuk - until the whole of Iraq becomes a Bantustan - a sectarian ghetto which closes its doors to strangers from other ghettos. There is no national identity anymore, only sectarian and racial identity.

Pan-Arab Al-Hayat said we were dreaming of destroying the racist wall built by Israel and here come walls to destroy our cities. To predict the Arab future, we must look at Baghdad. The winds of sectarianism warn of a season of unending walls. Perhaps it is too late to wage a comprehensive campaign against the epidemic of walls.

Bahraini Al-Wasat said the wall is a political scandal according to all international, moral and humanitarian standards. It is not just a part of a security project. Rather, it aims at isolating and turning neighbourhoods into sectarian ghettos.

Saudi daily Al-Watan wrote the division in Iraq came as a reflection of the huge failure of the invading forces. Moreover, the opinion of the elected government was not even considered in the decision to build the wall.

UAE's Al-Ittihad said the new US strategy has turned sectarian division from words to actual concrete on the ground.