|
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Lebanese prime minister warned Thursday that his army will seize all weapons shown publicly in southern Lebanon, offering a sharp retort to a boast from Hezbollah's leader that his fighters are on the border with Israel and won't leave.
A month into the U.N. cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, the United Nations said the truce is holding well, but the comments underscored growing friction between the Islamic militant group and the Lebanese government, which is led by opponents of Hezbollah's patron Syria. "I intend for the Lebanese army to prove its presence in the area south of the Litani River," Prime Minister Fuad Saniora told reporters after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. "We want this area to be under the army's and the Lebanese state's control. The army has all the authority to ban any armed appearances and confiscate those weapons," Saniora said. Some 15,000 Lebanese soldiers, backed by an equal number of U.N. peacekeepers, are deploying in the zone between the Israeli border and the Litani, about 18 miles to the north, to enforce the truce and a ban on Hezbollah weapons. Saniora made clear his troops will not actively hunt for hidden Hezbollah arsenals. But he insisted his Western-leaning government will no longer allow the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah to dominate the south. The U.N. cease-fire calls for the guerrillas to eventually be disarmed, but neither the Lebanese army nor U.N. soldiers want to provoke a confrontation with Hezbollah. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview aired late Wednesday that Israel's monthlong offensive had failed to dismantle Hezbollah or push the guerrillas north. "There is no demilitarized zone south of the Litani. The resistance (Hezbollah) is present south of the Litani and is present in all of south Lebanon," Nasrallah told Al-Jazeera television. Hezbollah fighters, who have controlled parts of south Lebanon for years, are believed to be lying low and blending in with the local population _ as they did before the war. Hezbollah's senior political officer in the south, Sheik Hassan Ezzeddine, said the group was exercising "self-restraint" in the face of what he called Israel's "flagrant violations" of the U.N. truce. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Israel was not violating the cease-fire. Regev instead alleged continued violations on the Lebanese side, in particular the failure to release two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah on July 12 sparked the war. The U.N. cease-fire called for their unconditional release, and the world body is to send an envoy next week to broker indirect talks between the two sides. The U.N. has asked Israel to pull down a barbed-wire fence Lebanon claims encroaches on its territory and said it would file a complaint with Israel's military about its jets flying in Lebanese airspace. The Lebanese army said Israel carried out 12 overflights Thursday. Similar incidents have occurred regularly in violation of the cease-fire, which went into effect Aug. 14. Still, U.N. officials expressed optimism. "The good news is that the cessation of hostilities is holding up very well," said Alexander Ivanko, spokesman of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. "The situation is still tense, but it is stable." Israel's army, which at its peak had 30,000 soldiers across the border up to 18 miles into Lebanon, has largely pulled back to a band 2 to 3 miles deep, Ivanko said. Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini, commander of the U.N. peacekeepers, said he expected the Israeli withdrawal to be completed by the end of the month. The 34-day war killed more than 850 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and almost 160 Israelis. Along with targeting Lebanese infrastructure, Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded Hezbollah strongholds south of Beirut and in eastern and southern Lebanon in an attempt to destroy the group's rocket arsenal. Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets at northern Israel. On Thursday, Amnesty International accused Hezbollah of breaking international humanitarian law by targeting Israeli towns. It previously issued a similar condemnation of Israel's offensive. The human rights group has called for a U.N. inquiry into possible war crimes committed by both sides, but Thursday's report focused on the actions of Hezbollah. Hezbollah rejected Amnesty's charges. Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah acknowledged his group targeted civilians in Israel, but said it was in response to Israeli attacks that killed Lebanese civilians. "We do not deny that we have bombarded Israeli cities, settlements and infrastructure. But this was always a reaction," he said in an interview by telephone with Al-Jazeera.
chron
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
