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Mideast stocks tumble

CAIRO Stock markets across the Middle East tumbled this week as signs piled up of an imminent US war on Iraq.

Stocks in Iraq"s neighbour, Jordan, took the heaviest beating as the ASE general index shed 3.7 per cent on the week to close on 166.28 points on Thursday.
Bahrain"s BSE general index lost three per cent on the week to close on Thursday at 1,777.48 points and Kuwait"s general index plunged two per cent to close on Wednesday at 2,446.8 points.

Kuwait announced on Tuesday that it was establishing a 'military exclusion zone' from February 15 on the emirate"s northern border with Iraq, amid a massive US military buildup in this area with troop numbers now topping 51,000 in the tiny country.
As the war clouds gathered, Bahrain, home of the US Fifth Fleet deployed in the Gulf, announced on Tuesday that an Arab summit planned in March in Manama had been transferred to Cairo.
Saudi Arabia"s TASI general index and Egypt"s broad-based HFI index both slipped 1.7 per cent on the week to close on 2,597.34 points and 6,053.00 points on Wednesday and on Thursday respectively.

The Saudi market, the most capitalised in the Arab world, closed on Wednesday.
It will reopen after the Eid al-Adha holiday on February 15.
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were the only Middle Eastern countries whose stock markets posted gains this week, albeit with only 0.5 and 0.3 per cent increases respectively.

The UAE"s NBAD index closed onThursday at 3,467.98 points and Qatar"s CBQ index closed at 447.63 points the same day.
Losses suffered by the remaining markets in the Middle East were below one per cent.
Iran"s Tepix index closed on 5,270.65 points on Wednesday, Oman"s MSM on 193.91 points on Thursday, Lebanon"s BSI on 456.68 points on Thursday, and the Palestinian Al Quds index on 142.77 points on Thursday.