Government's decisions that caused violent uprising repealed in effort to placate Hizbullah. Celebratory firing of weapons resounds through capital

Washington is ready to help the Lebanese Army respond more effectively to Hezbollah's armed supporters, US President George W Bush said in an interview with BBC Arabic television rebroadcast Tuesday.

Vice Premier Haim Ramon told the ministers that "Lebanon must be treated as a Hizbullah state. Everything that happens there is the responsibility of Hizbullah. The country is controlled by this terrorist organization, and its government has become irrelevant."

Heavy fighting broke out Monday between government supporters and opponents in Lebanon's second-largest city, where the two sides battled with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and mortars, security officials and residents said.

Lebanese officials claimed Sunday that Israeli Air Force warplanes flew over southern Lebanon.

Fierce fighting raged today between supporters of Lebanon's Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition in the northern city of Tripoli.

"About 7,000 people have fled from Bab al-Tebbaneh, which marks the frontlines, because of the battles," he said. Residents of Tripoli could hear heavy machine gun firing and the thump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades, some of which fell inside the city, an AFP correspondent said.

Hezbollah and its allies will end their armed presence in Beirut after the Lebanese army overturned government measures against the group, an opposition statement said on Saturday.

Lebanon's U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Saturday the state would not fall into the hands of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah which he accused of launching a coup by taking control of Beirut.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, May 22, New Yorker magazine investigative journalist Seymour Hersh repeated charges he published in that magazine in March, that the Bush Administration has been working with Saudi Arabia to arm Sunni fundamentalist cells, to fight Hezbollah. The recent explosion of violence in northern Lebanon between the Lebanese Army and the previously little-known group Fatah al-Islam, is but the latest example of this rotten collusion, Hersh charged.

The White House has accused Iran and Syria of fuelling violence in Lebanon by inciting Hezbollah to take up arms against the country's pro-western government.

The former head of Israel's intelligence Aaron Zeevi Farkash said that he had warned Washington against relying on its allies in Lebanon. "We advised the CIA not to rely on Walid Jumblatt or Saad Hariri because we tested them in 2006 and they proved helpless in the face of Hezbollah."

The United States has blamed Hezbollah as well as its patrons Iran and Syria for deadly unrest that has pushed Lebanon to the edge of civil war, and warned they must be held "accountable."

Unchallenged by Lebanon's army, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah routed Sunnis loyal to the U.S.-allied government and seized control of large swaths of Beirut's Muslim sector Friday in a telling demonstration of its military prowess.

. Now it is clear that Beirut is firmly in the hands of Hizballah and nothing the Americans can do will dislodge or weaken this popular movement, just as they cannot weaken the Sadrists in Iraq or Hamas in Gaza.

According to the Hezbollah people manning the berms on airport road, the airport will stayed closed until the 'three conditions" are met; i.e the pro-US government pledges to keep its hands off the optic fiber telecommunication network of the Resistance; the Government reinstates head of Beirut Airport Security General Wafiq Shouqair; and the Majority agrees to a dialogue. Until that happens, West Beirut and the airport will stay closed.

United States threatened by a representative of the Security Council "Zalmay Khalilzad" impose sanctions against Hezbollah and the countries supporting him in a reference to Syria and Iran, at a time when an Iranian aircraft landed at dawn yesterday in Beirut airport, abruptly.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, May 22, New Yorker magazine investigative journalist Seymour Hersh repeated charges he published in that magazine in March, that the Bush Administration has been working with Saudi Arabia to arm Sunni fundamentalist cells, to fight Hezbollah. The recent explosion of violence in northern Lebanon between the Lebanese Army and the previously little-known group Fatah al-Islam, is but the latest example of this rotten collusion, Hersh charged.

Hezbollah overruns west Beirut as Lebanon on brink...

Iran on Friday accused the United States and Israel of fueling the deadly sectarian fighting in Lebanon between its Shiite militant Hezbollah ally and the Western-backed ruling majority. ADVERTISEMENT "Adventurous efforts and interventions by the United States and the Zionist regime are the main cause of the continuous chaotic situation in Lebanon," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said.

The Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah took control of the Muslim half of Beirut on Friday, tightening its grip on the city in a major blow to the U.S.-backed government.

"We are staying here," said a protester who gave his name as Abu Rish. "We have money and support from Iran and Syria and we can go on like this for another 50 years."

Shiite Muslim supporters of the militant Hezbollah and Sunnis allied with Lebanon's U.S.-backed government clashed for a second day Thursday as sectarian violence in Beirut spilled over to other parts of the country.

n scenes grimly redolent of the 1975-1990 civil war, gunmen were seen inching down empty streets and firing rifles at windows to a backdrop of burning cars.But it was overshadowed by the worsening crisis between the Western-backed Government and Hezbollah, which many Lebanese fear is about to reach a showdown after 16 months of political gridlock.

Lebanon's opposition will extend a protest campaign launched on Wednesday in Beirut until the U.S.-backed government retracts decisions aimed against pro-Iranian Hezbollah, an opposition source said.

Lebanon's government has declared an extensive telecommunications network run by the powerful Shia opposition movement, Hezbollah, illegal.

Lately I've been catching a lot of flack about not denying a particular holocaust that affected a Jewish population 'along with a number of other populations'. This particular holocaust was just another of the ongoing holocaust routine that is part and parcel of life (and death) on Earth. It wasn't the biggest holocaust or even the second biggest. One of the biggest is going on right now in The Congo but since that is primarily happening to black people it isn't a real holocaust. When I mentioned it once, a Zionista Israeli told me not to "compare those animals with my people."

Arab media have reported that IDF jets attacked several targets in southern Lebanon Wednesday, including the cities of Nebatiyeh, Tyre and the western Bekaa Valley. Lebanese anti-aircraft positions fired Israeli aircraft, but all IDF servicemen are believed to have returned safely to Israel.

Israeli jets violate Lebanon airspace...

IAF Bombs Lebanese Targets; No Injuries Reported...

Arab media have reported that IDF jets attacked several targets in southern Lebanon Wednesday, including the cities of Nebatiyeh, Tyre and the western Bekaa Valley. Lebanese anti-aircraft positions fired Israeli aircraft, but all IDF servicemen are believed to have returned safely to Israel.

Hizbullah on Wednesday slammed the international community for failing to act in the face of what it called repeated incursions by Israeli troops. "The Israeli violations are taking place every day on Lebanese soil... in front of everyone, including the United Nations troops" stationed in the south of the country, a statement said.

Israeli Foot Patrol Violates South Lebanon...

In south Lebanon, where the 2006 summertime war between Israel and militant Shiite Hizbullah was played out, villages are abuzz with talk of another devastating conflict between the two archfoes.

The US Department of Defense said it would begin shipping $7.2 million worth of light weapons, trucks and clothes to the Lebanese Armed Forces 30 days after the US Congress passed the request without objections, according to reports published in various Gulf newspapers on Friday.

In another sign that renewed armed conflict between Israel and Hizballah may be on the horizon, a major Arab satellite network reported Sunday that the Lebanese army had begun pulling the civilian population back from the Israeli border.

If its aircraft could no longer bomb at will over Lebanon without fear of being destroyed, would Israel stage another costly land invasion - highly unlikely after the bloodying its troops took in 2006 - or use its own ground-to-ground missiles on Lebanon? For if the latter option were chosen, it would bring a whole new dimension to Lebanon's repeated wars. Long-range missiles have proved hopelessly inaccurate in Middle East conflicts and the Iran-Iraq war. But whatever political sins they still commit, the Lebanese - despite their current crisis - appear to have rejected any return to civil war. In such a war, no one could repeat the old lies about "pinpoint accuracy".

A UN commission investigating the death of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri says the evidence suggests a network of people was responsible for the attack.

No individuals were named, but the investigators said what it called the "Hariri Network" might also be behind other deadly attacks in Lebanon.

An Israeli warship briefly entered Lebanese waters on Monday but was intercepted by an Italian ship operating as part of the UN peacekeeping force, the army said on Tuesday.

Security forces fear double Hezbollah revenge attack in Israel, abroad...

"An Israeli Saar warship entered Lebanese territorial waters at 7:30 am (0530 GMT) yesterday morning before being intercepted by the Italian navy's Bettica, which is part of UNIFIL," an army spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.

Israel has threatened to wage another war against Lebanon if Hezbollah retaliates for the killing of its commander, Imad Mughniyah.

The White House on Monday condemned delays in Lebanon's presidential vote as "unacceptable" and urged outside forces to stop meddling in the deadlocked political process there.

MASSIVE US STRIKE GROUP DEPLOYED BEFORE THE COAST OF LEBANON......

You've got to admire the Lebanese. They're rarely fazed by anything. Throughout three decades, they've been embroiled in a lengthy civil war; they've been occupied by foreign armies and attacked by a puissant and sophisticated military power. Today, the country hosts a United Nations force and is devoid of a functioning government.

sraeli forces on Thursday penetrated the border line in south Lebanon towards the Ghajar area overseeing Wazani river, but did not cross the "Blue Line," Future TV reported.

There are more signs of a wider regional war as Tears for Lebanon (TFL) and Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) are reporting Army Commander General Michel Suleiman has ordered his officers to "achieve high combat readiness of their units to confront all expected possibilities, especially defending the southern land, maintain domestic security and stability." General Suleiman was issuing the directives to his senior commanders of Lebanon's most important units from his headquarters at Yarze a suburb east of Beirut. This is definitely within the time-table of Tehran as most of Lebanon's military has close relations with Damascus-Hezbollah. He said the army's "basic duty is to prevent the Israeli enemy from occupying Lebanese territories or attempting to use them as a passage to launch an aggression against Arab brethren."

�This decision proves that it's the United States which is interfering in Lebanese affairs, and that this interference has taken on a military slant,� Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan told AFP.

Germany handed over Friday the leadership of the U.N. naval mission off the Lebanese coast to a European command that includes Italy, France, Spain and Portugal after leading the mission for its first 17 months, the international organization announced.

Israel has said Hezbollah is rearming and has an arsenal that includes 10,000 long-range rockets and 20,000 short-range rockets in southern Lebanon, according to a report from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Everyone knows which government asked Washington for the warships: the same one that is now slaughtering children in Gaza and has threatened the besieged city with an Arab holocaust, the government whose deputy defense minister recently warned that the response to continued rocket attacks would be a Palestinian "shoah." The Palestinians, he brayed on state radio, are "bringing upon themselves a greater shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in air strikes or on the ground."

If the water resources in your country are rapidly decreasing, and the neighbouring country has an intact water supply... and if you think that in the future you will need the other countries water supply... then you will not attack that country saying you need their water. If you attack that country you will do so for another reason, hiding your real objective behind a wall of deception and lies.

Saudi advises nationals to leave Lebanon...

Al Jazeera English - News - Saudis Urged To Leave Lebanon...

The U.S. Navy has moved the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole and other ships to the eastern Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

A Hezbollah MP has condemned the deployment of the USS Cole warship off the coast of Lebanon as a threat to Lebanese sovereignty and independence.

Israeli warplanes breach Lebanese airspace...

The man said of his colleagues: "There are a lot of [Israeli] military and cabinet people just dying for a second round with Lebanon. If given the opportunity they'll take it," i.e. attack Lebanon again, not in spite of "but because of" the perception that their '06 attack failed.

Though the IDF leveled blocks and villages, dropped 4 million cluster bomblets (some of which are still exploding), and killed some 200 Hezbollah combatants and 1,000 Lebanese civilians (roughly 40 Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah), they apparently departed Lebanon feeling politically inadequate.

On Friday I asked a top-level Israeli, a former IDF (Israel Defense Forces) elite unit man and prime-ministerial confidante, whether the assassination of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh could have been done by a Lebanese group.

He snorted at the preposterous notion. This was "way too sophisticated," he said. "This the car bombing was a precisely orchestrated international operation," and this was the "third or fourth or fifth time in a year that Israel has carried out a military operation in Syria."

Israeli fighter jets and scouting planes violated Lebanese airspace on Thursday and flew over a number of areas, according to the Lebanese Army.

Israel waited months for the report on the Lebanon war to be issued by the government appointed commission. It was finally handed down last week, and as was expected by most was nothing but a watered down, whitewashed version of what actually happened.

A Lebanese man has been shot dead and another wounded in south Lebanon by Israel forces, Lebanese security sources have said.

The Lebanese Premier says the Winograd Report on the 2006 war against Lebanon confirms that Israel plans to attack his country again.

Israel continues to refuse to tell international sappers where it dropped its illegal cluster bombs on Lebanon....

The Lebanese Premier says the Winograd Report on the 2006 war against Lebanon confirms that Israel plans to attack his country again.

Eight Lebanese opposition supporters were shot dead in Beirut on Sunday in some of the worst street violence since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, raising tensions in a country gripped by political conflict.

The Lebanese army has opened fire on Israeli jets as they flew over the south of the country in violation of Lebanon's airspace.

An explosion just north of Beirut struck a U.S. Embassy vehicle Tuesday, a Western diplomatic source told CNN.

The complaint called the rocket fire a severe violation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought the Second Lebanon War to an end.

Speaking to Syrian President Basher Assad by phone Wednesday, Sarkozy gave Assad an ultimatum, telling him to "use all your means and influence to bring this about. Don"t waste time with talk. I am expecting actions, and your last opportunity is Saturday."

Lebanon blast kills army general...

LEBANESE Prime Minister Fouad Siniora assured the country yesterday there was no cause for alarm and said his cabinet was assuming executive powers in the absence of a president for the first time in nine years.

The crisis has prompted fears that two rival governments could be formed, as was the case at the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

The United States has restricted the movement of its diplomats in Lebanon as European Union states prepare to pull out from its peace-keeping mission and the Hizbullah threat to the Beirut government increases.

Lebanon's parliament failed on Friday to grasp its last chance to elect a head of state before pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud leaves office at midnight, creating a vacuum that many fear could lead to violence.

Tanks and heavily armed troops in armoured vehicles were out in force on Beirut's streets amid fears of a descent into violence as a parliament session to elect a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud was delayed for a further week.

"I am following the situation hour by hour and what worries me most is if Lahoud -- this puppet (of the Syrians) -- names a (parallel) government," said a man in his 60s who refused to give his name.

"If that happens the country will face terrible danger."

The season's first hailstorm Tuesday was a blessing in disguise for cluster bomb-infested parts of southern Lebanon, triggering blasts from previously unexploded bomblets. No injuries were reported.

Heaven knows there are plenty of troubles and potential crises in the Middle East, let alone the rest of the world. While many are understandably focused on Iraq, Iran, Pakistan or even Somalia, the tiny, beleaguered country of Lebanon is facing a crisis that could not only tear the country apart but invite intervention from some of its neighbors, not necessarily friendly ones.

In defiance of the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1701, three Israeli armored vehicles have entered Lebanese territory.

IAF jets were carrying out mock air strikes on Lebanese targets, a Lebanese news agency reported Tuesday.

According to the report, IAF warplanes were circling the skies over towns and villages in southern Lebanon, including Tyre, Bint Jbail and Marjayoun.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned on Friday against diplomatic moves to resolve the standoff between Lebanon's rival political camps through compromise. Rice's comments came as Lebanon's rival camps are trying to reach a deal over a successor to President Emile Lahoud, who must step down on November 24.

Parliament is set to meet on November 12 for the vote.

Lebanese army units fired in the direction of Israel Air Force planes that entered the country's airspace on Thursday, the London-based Arabic-language daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Friday.

This is the second time in a week that Lebanon has said its troops fired on IAF planes that had violated its airspace.

Ban Ki-Moon said the reports of Hezbollah's rearming are a cause of great concern for the stability of Lebanon.P"Israel has stated that the nature and number of weapons in Hezbollah's control constitutes a strategic threat to its security and the safety of its citizens," he said.

Lebanese sources: Troops open fire on IAF planes over Lebanon...

Hezbollah has argued that Washington's attempts to boost military ties with Lebanon are a ploy for domination and could turn the country into another Iraq. Some in Lebanon have expressed fears that a foreign military presence in the country could attract al-Qaida and other militants.

Lebanon's top Shiite Muslim cleric accused the Bush administration of trying to force the Lebanese to choose between turning their country into an American military base or face new strife.

What now worries the Lebanese authorities, however, is the sheer scale of weaponry arriving in Lebanon. It appears to include new Glock pistols (asking price $1,000). There are growing fears, moreover, that many of these guns are from the vast stock of 190,000 rifles and pistols which the US military "lost" when they handed them out to Iraqi police officers without registering their numbers or destination. The American weapons included 125,000 Glock pistols. The Lebanese-Iraqi connection is anyway well established. A growing number of suicide bombers in Iraq come from the Lebanese cities of Tripoli and Sidon.

Fouad Siniora's Lebanese government � supplied by the US with recent shipments of new weapons for the official Lebanese army � has now admitted that militias are also being created among Muslim pro-government groups. Widespread reports that Saad Hariri � son of the assassinated ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri � has himself created an embryo militia have been officially denied. But a number of armed Hariri supporters initially opened fire into the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian camp after its takeover by pro-Al-Qaida gunmen last April. Hariri's men also have forces in Beirut (supposedly unarmed) and again this is denied. Those who suspect the opposite, however, might like to check the register of the Mayflower Hotel in the western sector of Beirut.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah claimed on Friday that Israel was behind the assassination of Lebanese politicians and urged feuding parties to agree on who should become president in order to end the country's crisis.

Briton killed while clearing IDF cluster bombs in southern Lebanon...

With the Islamist group Hezbollah having brought Lebanese politics to a standstill, the country�s once-dominant Christian community feels under siege and has begun re-establishing militias, training in the hills and stockpiling weapons.

Many Lebanese say another civil war � like the 15-year one that started in 1975 � is imminent and that the most dangerous flash points are within the divided Christian community.

Christian youth are signing up for militant factions in the greatest numbers since the end of the civil war, spray painting nationalist symbols on walls and tattooing them on their skin, and proclaiming their willingness to fight in a new civil war � in particular, against fellow Christians.

In an interview on CNN International's Your World Today, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported.

Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists.

Israeli warplanes have flown at low altitude over southern Lebanon in defiance of a United Nations resolution, reports from Beirut say.

In its harshest condemnation of Israel since the Second Lebanon War, Human Rights Watch charged that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties came from indiscriminate Israeli air strikes, according to a report to released Thursday.

Hezbollah is planning a host of lawsuits against Israel over the damages caused during last summer's Lebanon war.

Nearly All the War Crimes Were Israel's

They've done it again. The Arabs have, once more, followed democracy and voted for the wrong man.

Just as the Palestinians voted for Hamas when they were supposed to vote for the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, so the Christian Maronites of Lebanon appear to have voted for a man opposed to the majority government of Fouad Siniora in Beirut. Camille Khoury - with a strong vote from the Armenian Tashnak party - won by 418 votes the seat that belonged to Pierre Gemayel, murdered last November by gunmen supposedly working for the Syrian security services.

ll of us in Lebanon have a "sense of possibilities" right now - and they are all bad. The Lebanese army - still fighting its way into the Palestinian Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in the north of the country more than a month after the minister of defence announced total victory over the army's "Fatah al-Islam" opponents - is about the only institution still working in this country. Yesterday morning's Beirut newspapers carried front-page pictures of Lebanese soldiers aboard an armoured personnel carrier, all making "victory" signs to photographers.

'We blocked US plans' - Hezbollah...

Hezbollah is believed to be behind two attacks on the U.S. Embassy and an embassy annex in 1983 and 1984 that led to the deaths of 87 people, including eight CIA employees.

Syria is calling on its citizens who are in Lebanon to leave the country ahead of an expected military "eruption" expected to take place next week.

Residents of the heart of town said they felt slowly squeezed by the extremism on the city's edges and the security risks it entails.

"Enter at Your Risk," it says over the tunnel and on the other side is a burning car containing the corpse of Lebanon's latest assassination victim.

And not just "any" victim. The man in the smouldering vehicle is Walid Eido, a Beirut member of parliament, a former judge, much revered - anti-Syrian, of course, otherwise he would not be dead, would he? - and a supporter of Saad Hariri, son of the murdered former prime minister Rafik who was killed in an even bigger explosion on 14 February 2005, a thousand metres on the other side of my apartment. What is it about Beirut that turns this beautiful, sun-blessed city into a crematorium so quickly?

US President George W. Bush on Wednesday indirectly accused Syria of involvement in the Beirut blast that killed a Lebanese anti-Syrian MP and nine others.

"Those working for a sovereign and democratic Lebanon have always been the ones targeted. The victims have always been those who sought an end to Syrian President Assad's interference in Lebanon's internal affairs."

Prominent anti-Syrian MP Walid Ido, his eldest son and two bodyguards were killed along with at least three other people in a seafront blast in Beirut last night. Ido, the chairman of parliament's defence committee, was a member of the Future Movement of Saad Hariri, whose father and former premier Rafiq was assassinated in a similar blast two years ago.

Four Israeli warplanes violate Lebanese airspace...

"Regime change is, of course, our goal both in Lebanon and Syria. We wrote long ago that there are three ways to achieve it- the dictator chooses to change; he falls before his own unhappy people; or if he poses a threat to the outside, the outside takes him out..." -Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), From strategy paper #474 "Priorities in Lebanon & Syria", March 2, 2005

During last years war between Israel and the Lebanese people the Israeli Air Force (IAF) were provided with targets that had nothing to do with diminishing the ability of Israel�s stated enemy to strike back at Israel. Many of these targets were small and medium sized Lebanese industrial businesses that were manufacturing products for the global and regional market � a market that Israeli businesses were also competing in.

The fact that most of these families are the survivors of the 1982 Invasion by Israel and the subsequent Sabra and Shatila massacres by Ariel Sharon�s goons only underscores the never-ending tragedy that is the Palestinian existence. How long will the Palestinians have to pay for the crimes that they have not committed?

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora repeated a warning on Saturday to Islamist militants holed up in a northern refugee camp that they must surrender or be crushed, as intense fighting continued to rage.

"We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Muslim regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan, and Syria will fall to us." -David Ben-Gurion, From "Ben-Gurion, A Biography" by Michael Ben-Zohar, May 1948

Fighting erupted again on Friday between troops besieging a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon and Islamist militants holed up inside, as the standoff entered its 13th day.

By mid-morning fighting was continuing at the camp. The military spokesman denied media reports that the army was reinforcing its positions around Nahr al-Bared in preparation for an assault.

A majority of families from a besieged Palestinian refugee camp caught in the crossfire between Islamic activists and the Lebanese army have fled the crowded camp but thousands of people remain trapped inside, a UN official said on Sunday.

Accusing the White House of "no longer acting rationally," Hersh said: "We're in the business of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia; We're in the business of creating ... sectarian violence."

The United Nations pleaded for the welfare of thousands of civilians trapped by the Lebanese army's siege of Islamist militants as the few hundred who managed to get out on Saturday told harrowing tales of their escape.

The Lebanese Army restricted public access to the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, near Tripoli, the day after fighting broke out between Fatah al-Islam�an extremist group that emerged six months ago in Lebanon and shares al-Qaeda�s ideology�and the Lebanese Army. Journalists, both local and foreign, are covering the clashes and their effect on more than 30,000 Palestinian refugees caught up in the fighting.

The Lebanese Army has not publicly explained the restriction, although officials initially told journalists that it was imposed for safety reasons. Reporters told CPJ that some journalists followed aid convoys into the camp Wednesday night to report on conditions, but the Lebanese Army quickly forced them out.

"Terrorist" leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (May Allah be pleased with him for an ever) noted in his speech this evening that it was truly "odd" that the US did not help Lebanon defend itself from the bastards in Israel last year but for some reason today, they are sending enough weaponry to conduct......drum roll please...another Israeli proxy war against the Palestinians.

Lebanese forces, battling the militants, are due to be re-supplied by a shipment of U.S. military hardware. The U.S. military has promised six cargo flights of ammunition.

Senior U.S. officials have stressed the flights are carrying only supplies for Lebanese forces, and the U.S. military has no intention of involving its troops in the fighting.

Nahr al-Bared is one of several Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon dating back to the 1948 Mideast war that followed the creation of Israel.

I looked across the camp. Was it worth all this pain, the grotty, empty streets, the broken apartment block with dirty grey smoke still drifting from its windows? The Lebanese soldiers claim they try never to hurt civilians (I can think of another army which says that!), but did so many Palestinians have to be killed or wounded for the crimes of a few, some - we do not know how many - not even from "Palestine" but from Syria or Yemen or Saudi Arabia? Just behind me was the checkpoint where the gunmen of Chaker el-Absi (born Jericho 1955, later a MiG pilot in Libya, according to his brother in Jordan) butchered four soldiers at the weekend, slitting their throats and leaving their severed heads on the road.

Most of the troops around me were from the north of Lebanon - so were the murdered soldiers. Had there been feelings of revenge rather than military discipline when they first opened fire? There were certainly growls of retaliation in the Safad hospital - named, with terrible coincidence, after the very town in pre-Israel Palestine from which many of Nahr el-Bared's refugee families originally came - and Fatah, the old Arafat PLO Fatah, now had armed men on the streets to protect the medical personnel and the new, wounded refugees from the next burst of fury.

Lebanon's defence minister told Islamic militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp on Wednesday after three days of fierce fighting with the army that they must surrender or else.

"The army will not negotiate with Fatah al-Islam, which has two choices: either surrender or the army will take the military option," Elias Murr said in an interview on Arabic satellite channel Al-Arabiya.

A ceasefire between Lebanese forces and Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp today collapsed after less than an hour.

Relief workers said they had been told that dozens of houses had been crushed by bombardment, with residents buried inside.

When asked why the administration would be acting in a way that appears to run counter to US interests, Hirsh says that, since the Israelis lost to them last summer, "the fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute."

As a result, Hersh implies, the Bush administration is no longer acting rationally in its policy. "We're in the business of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia. ... "We're in the business of creating ... sectarian violence." And he describes the scheme of funding Fatah al-Islam as "a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shia world, and it just simply -- it bit us in the rear."

Lebanon army fights militants, blast hits Beirut...

The fierce battle between the Lebanese Government and a radical Islamist faction shifted to one of Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps today, bringing civilians into the line of fire and raising fears of a period of instability for the country.

Fighting between Lebanese troops and Islamic fighters left 40 dead in northern Lebanon, while an explosion in Beirut late Sunday left at least one woman dead and 10 wounded.

But in the valleys below the city, rich, red dirt lies fallow even though Aita al-Shaab is an agricultural village. Fields above the town go ungrazed. Since last summer, after Israel dropped about one million cluster bombs in southern Lebanon alone�up to 40 percent of which the United Nations Mine Action Clearing Center (MACC) estimates lie unexploded--most farmers and shepherds have been too afraid to go onto their lands.

Israel has been heavily criticized for dropping 90 percent of the 2-3 million cluster bombs used throughout Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the war, after a cease-fire was agreed upon.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington might seek to force the setting up of a tribunal in the murder of a Lebanese former premier under a chapter of the UN Charter which makes Security Council decisions mandatory.

Beirut- Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's second-in-command has reached out to rival political leaders, announcing that his group was ready for any settlement under the emblem of national unity.

Israel is seeking to brand the militants captured by its troops in southern Lebanon as "illegal combatants," the same legal classification used by the United States to deny Guantanamo Bay inmates due process in American courts.

As enemy combatants the three captives would face murder charges and the prospects of long stints in Israeli jails. As prisoners of war, they would be sent back to Lebanon as soon as a prisoner exchange can be agreed.

It seems as though some Israeli military and political leaders are champing at the bit for a rematch with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon after the bloody nose the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) got there last summer.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Wednesday night that its troops shot at suspicious shadows moving near the fence on the Israel-Lebanon border for the first time since its ceasefire with Lebanese Hezbollah on Aug. 14 last year.

France and Israel are on a collision course in south Lebanon following incidents involving Israeli warplanes over- flying the positions of the French military contingent serving with the UN peacekeeping force there.

In the most serious confrontation, French troops were said by sources in Paris to have been "just two seconds" from launching an anti- aircraft missile at two Israeli F-15 fighters carrying out mock low-level attack runs over one outpost.

Israel's defense minister told the head of the United Nations on Saturday that the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in southern Lebanon is endangered by Hezbollah militants, who continue to hold two captured Israeli soldiers and receive arms shipments from Syria.

The reality is that Washington is now much more deeply involved in Lebanon's affairs than most people, even the Lebanese, realise. Indeed there is a danger that - confronted by its disastrous "democratic" experiment in Iraq - the US government is now turning to Lebanon to prove its ability to spread democracy in the Middle East. Needless to say, the Americans and the British have been generous in supplying the Lebanese army with new equipment, jeeps and Humvees and anti-riot gear (to be used against who, I wonder?) and there was even a hastily denied report that Defence Minister Michel Murr would be picking up some missile-firing helicopters after his recent visit to Washington. Who, one also asks oneself, were these mythical missiles supposed to be fired at?

israelis planned kidnapping of soldiers in Lebanon...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has testified he launched last year's war against Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon in line with a contingency plan he approved four months before, the Haaretz daily said on Thursday.

Olmert, under fire for his handling of the inconclusive 34-day war, told a judicial inquiry last month that Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 triggered the plans for a large-scale attack in Lebanon, the Israeli newspaper said.

Israeli planes violated Lebanese air space on Wednesday, prompting anti-aircraft fire from the army, Lebanese police said.

Rafik Hariri and The Salvador Option in Beirut...

In short, American political support for another go at Lebanon is virtually assured: aside from a few on the left, and the right, who are beginning to challenge the Lobby's hegemony over U.S. foreign policy, there will be very few voices raised against renewed Israeli aggression. Our supine Congress � which Pat Buchanan trenchantly called "Israeli-occupied territory" � will shout hosannas as U.S.-made -and-paid-for jets drop cluster bombs on schools, hospitals, factories, and other nests of "terrorism."