Hezbollah

MARJAYOUN, South Lebanon -- These are days of death and dread for the South Lebanon Army, the Christian-founded militia that's been armed, trained, clothed and paid by Israel for more than two decades. Since the mid-1970s, its members have cast their lot with Israel. Fighting first the Palestine Liberation Organization and more recently Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah guerrillas, they have become pariahs to many of their fellow Lebanese. Now this joyless collaboration is ending with Israel's announced withdrawal by July from the slim "security zone" it occupies along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

JERUSALEM - Reflecting a divided, angst-ridden nation, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Cabinet narrowly approved yesterday a prisoner swap with the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah to return to Israel a businessman and the bodies of three soldiers. The deal does not include Ron Arad, an aviator who was captured 17 years ago after he parachuted from his crippled bomber over southern Lebanon. His fate is unknown, and his omission from the deal forged by German mediators has driven a bitter debate in Israel for months.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The leader of the militant Hezbollah party said yesterday that the group had no intention of surrendering its weapons despite President Bush's call for it to disarm and integrate into the political mainstream. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah defended the Shiite Muslim group's military role but appeared to leave an opening for possible disarmament talks with other Lebanese groups. "I am firm in keeping our arms because I believe the resistance is the best option for defending Lebanon against Israeli threats," Nasrallah said on Hezbollah's Al Manar satellite television station.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The crimson flag of Hezbollah wrapped the "martyr's" coffin yesterday, and the whole box was sheathed in plastic. Lowered into the ground amid chants of "God is Great," the coffin will be dug up and reburied -- without the plastic -- in southern Lebanon when the Israeli bombardment ends.The occupant of the coffin, a Hezbollah fighter named Ahmad Cherri killed by a rocket from an Israeli jet, was a "fair" fatality, according to convoluted rules of the conflict in south Lebanon.

As the Bush administration sought last week to play down Hezbollah's success in boosting its power and legitimacy in Lebanon, the militant group's rising influence around the world has led some intelligence and counterterrorism officials to ask whether the Iranian-financed organization has grown more dangerous to the United States than al-Qaida. Though few believe Hezbollah would launch an attack in the West, continued hostility between the United States and Iran could significantly raise the threat level here, several former counterterrorism officials and analysts said - especially if the tensions evolve into full-blown conflict.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Israeli fighter jets demolished Hezbollah's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut yesterday, after striking power plants, the main highway leading from the city to Damascus and Beirut's airport. Hezbollah's leader, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, responding to the destruction of the apartment building that served as his home and headquarters, warned that attacks by Hezbollah fighters would intensify and reach new targets. "To the Zionists, you wanted an open war and you will have it," he said in a statement, promising "to reach Haifa and even farther."

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon's political and military leaders struggled to pull the country back yesterday from a deepening civil conflict that has left at least 34 people dead in four days of violence between Iranian-backed militias and supporters of the pro-U.S. government. By yesterday evening, the government appeared to back away from the political decree that sparked the confrontation, while the Shiite militia Hezbollah gave up its control of West Beirut, which it had seized handily a day earlier in an offensive that stunned Lebanese and sent shock waves throughout the region.

HAIFA, Israel -- During his three years as an Israeli paratrooper in the West Bank and Gaza, Gadi Wiasman was wounded once, when a rock thrown by a Palestinian chipped his tooth. But after three days of fighting in Lebanon, the 35-year-old reservist lay in a hospital bed yesterday recovering from extensive shrapnel wounds from two Hezbollah shells that struck his combat unit Wednesday, killing one soldier and wounding seven. "It's a different kind of fight," said Wiasman, his left arm and leg wrapped in white gauze.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Just weeks after terrorizing northern Israel with Katyusha rockets, Hezbollah guerrillas moved to shore up a fragile cease-fire yesterday by blocking public access to an Israeli-Lebanese border post that has become the scene of violent anti-Israel disturbances. Hezbollah placed trucks to keep crowds away from the border post after Israeli soldiers responded to rock-throwing and an attempt to climb over the fence by firing into the Lebanese crowd, injuring a demonstrator.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Israeli airstrikes hit central Beirut for the first time yesterday, and cross-border rocket barrages struck deeper inside Israel, reaching the previously unscathed city of Tiberias as the confrontation between Hezbollah guerrillas and the Jewish state spiraled toward all-out war. Fueling fears that the conflict could spill over into regional strife, Israeli officials asserted that Iranian personnel had helped fire a missile Friday that...