Lebanon comes under pressure

By Samia Nakhoul

BEIRUT (Reuters): Lebanon is facing heavy foreign pressure to curb Hizbollah border raids on Israeli troops that could trigger devastating Israeli retaliation.

Seven months after the last Israeli soldier quit south Lebanon, ending a 22-year occupation, the volatile frontier region has been left largely to itself, under the control of the Shi'ite Muslim group.

Hizbollah has staged three attacks on Israeli positions since the May 24 pullout, capturing three Israeli soldiers on Oct. 7. All the raids occurred in the 25-square-kilometer (10-sq-mile) Shebaa Farms plateau at the foot of Mount Hermon, disputed territory on the Syrian-Lebanese-Israeli border.

Hizbollah appears to be gambling that Israel will not risk opening a new front while battling a nine-week-old Palestinian uprising that has killed nearly 300 people, most of them Palestinians, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But analysts say Israel's tolerance is wearing thin, arguing that a sustained Hizbollah campaign could prompt fierce reprisals that might ignite a new cross-border conflict.

"The message is getting across. They (Lebanese officials) are hearing from all countries, including friends, that Israel at one point will carry out a large-scale operation. They have been advised that the situation might get out of hand," a Western diplomat said.

A cross-border Hizbollah ambush killed an Israeli soldier last week, sending regional tensions spiraling and foreign envoys scurrying to Beirut to apply diplomatic balm.

Hizbollah's success in forcing Israel out of Lebanon won the guerrillas prestige, but removed their key reason for existence.

Goading Israel with border raids keeps the fighters motivated and allows their leaders to argue that the group is directly helping Palestinians fighting for their land.

"We are at a stage where our struggle with Israel has fundamentally changed. What is happening in Palestine and in the south affirms that Israel is under siege and that America is incapable of coming to its rescue," Nabil Kaouk, a Hizbollah official in south Lebanon Nabil, told Reuters.

Yet Hizbollah has not thrown caution to the winds, limiting its attacks to the Shebaa Farms area, which it argues belongs to Lebanon, a claim backed by Beirut and Damascus, but not Israel.

Israel has warned it might strike Syria and Lebanon if Damascus, which backs Hizbollah and is the main power in Lebanon, does not curb the guerrillas, but diplomats say the two governments have not taken Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's threats very seriously.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has voiced alarm and urged all three countries, as well as Hizbollah, to show restraint.

Washington is also worried about the possibility of a severe Israeli strike on Lebanon. Lebanese officials said U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright relayed her concern in a lengthy telephone discussion with Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri last week.

The United Nations, France, Britain and the European Union are pushing Beirut to send the Lebanese army to the border with Israel, citing UN resolution 425 which calls for the extension of Lebanese authority south following an Israeli withdrawal.

Some countries propose cutting the 5,400-strong UN Interim Force in Lebanon to coax Beirut to move troops southward.

Diplomats said that only 400 UN peacekeepers have been able to deploy in the area vacated by Israel in May because of the risk of friction with Hizbollah and the failure of the Lebanese authorities to back them with regular army troops.

Lebanon and Syria, which regarded Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon as an attempt to isolate it in talks over the Golan Heights, insist that the Lebanese army will not deploy in the south until there is a final peace with Israel.

Lebanon says Hizbollah's attacks in the Shebaa plateau are legitimate because it remains under Israeli occupation.

Diplomats say Hizbollah had the green light from Damascus and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud to wage a new guerrilla war to liberate Shebaa to keep up the pressure on Israel.

The United Nations, however, says Lebanon is 22 years too late to stake a claim to Shebaa, which was seized by Israel from the Syrian army in the 1967 Middle East War.

Syrian sovereignty there was confirmed in the 1973 war, when the United Nations sent a UN Disengagement Observation Force (UNDOF) to oversee a Syrian-Israeli cease-fire in the Golan Heights, according to UN documents.

When UNIFIL was dispatched to south Lebanon in 1978, the Security Council did not include the Shebaa Farms in its mandate because the area had long been placed under UNDOF's jurisdiction without a objection from Lebanon and Syria.

Diplomats said Washington was using what influence it has on Syria to prevent war erupting over Shebaa.

They said the U.S. message was that the Lebanese army must take control of the south and Damascus must stop trying to use Hizbollah as a lever in talks with Israel on the Golan.

"The decision to send the army to the south is not a Lebanese one but a Syrian decision," a Western diplomat said. "The key to the dilemma is Syria, which is still using Lebanon as a pressure card on Israel."