The mother of all news stories: how the world's front pages united around a single theme

For the first time in just more than two years - since the terrorist attacks brought the towers of the World Trade Centre to the ground - yesterday's newspapers looked almost identical, no matter where in the world they were published.

Unlike the images of blazing buildings on 12 September, 2001, the pictures on the front pages of 15 December, 2003 were of a single individual. Both events represented the demise of a globally recognised icon. But if yesterday's pictures were homogenous, showing the most notorious tyrant in a generation, handcuffed, bearded and dishevelled, the words that accompanied them were not.

The mood in America and Europe was triumphant, but the Arab media were palpably embarrassed at Saddam Hussein's failure to go down fighting like his two sons, Uday and Qusay. The Palestinian press was outraged at the Iraqi leader's "betrayal". Al-Ayyam said: "The hero fell yesterday". Chris Westcott, director of BBC Monitoring, said: "There's a clear division between European and US coverage, a combination of euphoria and relief, and the Islamic world where some still see him as a hero, and others have condemned him for not coming out with all guns blazing."

Maher Othman, Arab affairs editor at Al-Hayat newspaper, said there was a profound sense of shock in places such as Jordan, Palestine and Syria that Saddam had allowed himself to be taken "so easily". He said: "People expected he would resist or have a capsule of cyanide for suicide or save the last shot in his pistol for his own head. It leaves people to conclude that this man loved himself too much."

Al-Hayat covered the story over five pages, contrasting the joy at Saddam's capture in Kuwait with the "sadness" in his home town of Tikrit. It also compared the tame end to the manhunt with the bold comments of some of those who had been close to Saddam and predicted he would not go down without a fight. It reproduced the earlier words of Salah Omar Al-Ali, a former member of Iraq's Revolutionary Council, whose views on Saddam's capacity to defend himself were widely shared in the Arab world.

Mr Al Ali had said: "He has a genius for changing his headquarters and places of abode. He has been accused of many things but it cannot be said he is not brave. His courage does not require evidence, neither does his capacity for violence." From much of the Islamic world, came dire predictions. "Saddam's humiliation could fire up resistance," suggested the website of the Qatar-based news agency Al-Jazeera. "The humiliating images of Saddam Hussein's capture by US forces risk increasing Arab support for the Iraqi resistance and sharpening their appetite for revenge." The agency quoted the Egyptian writer, Sayyid Nassar, who said: "By shaving his beard, a symbol of virility in Iraq and in the Arab world, the Americans committed an act that symbolises humiliation in our region."

It was a long-way from the crowing of the Western tabloids. The New York Post issued a special edition with the headline: "We Got Him!", like so many papers across America. The Post said: "American soldiers captured a bearded and haggard Saddam Hussein, pouncing on the once-feared Iraqi dictator while he hid in a cramped underground tunnel 'like a rat' in a hole."

America's heavyweight press was more sober, The New York Times saying: "Saddam Hussein's capture leaves the United States facing the same profound questions about how best to create a stable and democratic government in Iraq".

The Jerusalem Post said the capture was "fabulous news", and Russia's Kommersant predicted the ensuing trial would be "a beautiful PR stunt for George Bush".

But not every editor was grateful. De Standaard, in Belgium, said: "Showing degrading pictures of a prisoner, even if he was a cruel tyrant, does not increase the moral authority of those who overpowered him."