BEIRUT, 9 May 2003 — Neither Syria nor Lebanon is exerting any pressure on the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah to disarm in response to US demands, its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said in remarks published yesterday. “There is no official Lebanese or Syrian pressure seeking to make us accept measures related to US demands,” Nasrallah told the pro-Syrian daily As-Safir.
“If they want to disarm Hezbollah, this is not among the goals of Lebanon or Syria,” added Nasrallah, whose movement, backed by Iran and Syria, led the resistance to Israel’s 22-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in May 2000. Nasrallah said the group’s armed wing, based mainly in south Lebanon, would continue to operate “because whether before or after the invasion of Iraq, the Israeli occupation endures and therefore, the resistance will continue.”
Meanwhile, Lebanese authorities arrested overnight three Palestinian men suspected of links to a string of bomb attacks against Western fast-food restaurants, Palestinian and Lebanese security sources said yesterday. The arrests came a day after Lebanese officials said members of the network blamed for the bombings also planned to kill US Ambassador Vincent Battle in the northern city of Tripoli.
Palestinian security sources said the Lebanese Army arrested the men separately in a security clampdown as they tried to enter the Beddawi Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli.
In another development, as Israeli choppers blasted another Palestinian activist on their wanted list yesterday in Gaza, the Bashiti family buried its youngest son in Khan Yunis, amid warnings the much-touted road map could soon join the ever-expanding cemetery of failed peace initiatives. As 18-month-old Aliyan was being laid to rest, there was promise of yet more funerals and calls for bloody revenge after an Israeli helicopter fired missiles at a car in Gaza City, killing a member of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing.
The operation - which Israel describes as a “targeted killing” and the Palestinians as an assassination - sets a tense backdrop for this weekend’s visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who will be expected to put the road map for peace on the tracks. As thousands of people gathered behind the white van carrying Aliyan’s body to the cemetery, a voice relentlessly blared out through a loudspeaker: “Our path is blood, not the road map!”
The van was decorated with posters of the toddler in his romper suit. The posters were prepared by the Fatah party of Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
