Coronavirus Update: Arab Media Claims US Created nCov As 'Biological War' Against China

A pro-Israeli media organization reports the growing dissemination by Arab media of the fake news the United States invented the rampaging Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) to cripple China. This highly-contagious disease has killed 910 persons (all but two in China) and infected 40,553 others globally as of Monday morning.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a nonprofit press monitoring and analysis organization based in Washington, D.C. known for its pro-Israel slant, reports three instances where writers in three countries all wrote about the same message -- 2019-nCoV is an American biological weapon unleashed by the United States on the world.

This anti-American line, which is also being spread worldwide by Russian media, was published recently in Al-Watan (one of the most liberal newspapers in Saudi Arabia), VetoGate (one of the leading liberal independent newspapers in Egypt) and Al Thawra (the official newspaper of the Syrian government of president Bashar al-Assad). One of Al-Watan's former editors-in-chief was the late Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered on orders of the Saudi Arabian government in 2019.

Writing in Al-Watan, Sa'ud Al-Shehry said it's no coincidence the coronavirus hasn't infected Israel and the U.S. Al-Shehry is right about there being no coronavirus cases in Israel. He's wrong about the U.S., which is currently dealing with 12 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

Al-Shehry claims the coronavirus is a plot by American and Israeli drug companies aimed at increasing their profits. He also accused the U.S. of being behind other outbreaks (such as MERS, also called camel flu) over the past several years in China and in the Arab world.

Al-Shehry said behind the coronavirus outbreak, "there is a plan of deceit aimed at making a profit, and nothing more. The whole thing is a virus industry, a world of tiny creatures -- viruses and genetic engineering -- that culminate in the manufacture of a virus that is transferred to wealthy countries that can buy the (vaccine) serum."

Egyptian journalist Ahmad Rif'at writing in VetoGate also accuses the U.S. of engineering 2019-nCoV, and practically all other global virus outbreaks over the decades. He also explained why and how the US. chose Wuhan as the launch pad for this "American crime."

He claims the U.S. chose to unleash the coronavirus in Wuhan because the city is at the bottom of the list of China's major cities. This standing made Wuhan a suitable site "for an American crime... for it is not a focus of attention, and the level of healthcare there is surely lower than in the larger and more important cities."

"All that is needed in order to let a virus spread quickly is to release it from some bag, using an ordinary syringe or in any other way," he wrote. "But the really interesting fact is the large number of Americans who were staying in Wuhan and decided to leave it immediately and quickly ...."

A story in the Syrian daily Al-Thawra by columnist Hussein Saqer claims the coronavirus is part of a commercial-biological-psychological war waged by the U.S. against China.

"From Ebola, zika, SARS, avian flu and swine flu, through anthrax and mad cow disease to the corona(virus) -- (all these) deadly viruses were manufactured by the U.S. and threaten to annihilate the peoples of the world."

He claims the U.S. has turned biological warfare into a new type of war, by means of which it intends to change the rules of play and shift the conflict with the peoples of the world away from the conventional path.