Lebanon general 'worried' ahead of UN indictment

Lebanon's top army chief admitted on Saturday that he is concerned about tensions in the country ahead of an indictment from a UN-backed court on the assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

"I am worried but I am not afraid," General Jean Kahwaji, who rarely makes public statements, told the daily An Nahar.

"We have deployed sufficient troops in Beirut and have studied all other areas at risk," he said.

"The army will be firm... in all areas and particularly Christian areas," he said without elaborating.

Lebanon's diminishing Christian community, estimated at less than 30 per cent of the four-million population, divides its loyalty between rival camps headed respectively by Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the slain former premier, and Shiite Hezbollah.

Powerful and armed during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, Christian leaders have since turned in their weapons, relying instead on alliances with Saudi-backed Hariri and Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Hariri and Hezbollah are currently locked in a standoff over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a UN-backed probe into the 2005 Beirut bombing which killed five-time prime minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others.

The tribunal has angered Lebanon's Hezbollah, which called for a boycott of the STL amid unconfirmed reports an impending indictment would implicate members of the Shiite militant group.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has openly warned Lebanese against further cooperation with the tribunal.

His second-in-command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, has said charges against Hezbollah would be "equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion."

But Hariri has vowed to see the investigation through.

His Christian allies said on Friday after meeting with Lebanon's patriarch that the country was in a state of "grave danger", expressing fears of another round of government paralysis and possible violence.

Last week a report in the daily Al Akhbar, which is close to Hezbollah, said the Shia party had quietly sent its partisans throughout the country in a dry run for a possible takeover of the capital and other areas in the aftermath of the STL indictment.

General Kahwaji also expressed concern about the possibility of attacks by fundamentalists, three years after troops battled an uprising by the Al Qaeda-inspired Fatah Al Islam group in a Palestinian refugee camp.

His interview came amid a resurgence in international support for the STL, with the United States, France and the United Nations reiterating the backing for the investigation in recent days.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived in Lebanon Friday in the latest of a string of diplomatic efforts to contain tensions over the expected indictment.

Kouchner on Saturday met Hezbollah's international relations officer, Ammar Moussawi, who accused the United States of using the STL as its "last pawn" in Lebanon in a statement released by his office after the meeting.

The United States last week announced a new $10 million contribution to the STL, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday made a phone call to Saad Hariri to reaffirm her country's support for the prime minister.

UN Security Council powers also threw their weight behind the investigation into the Hariri murder during special talks in New York on Friday.

On Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal called for restraint by all sides in Lebanon, after meeting his Italian counterpart Franco Frattini.

"We hope that all Lebanese parties exercise self-control... and sit together at the dialogue table to solve the problems on the basis of the constitution, and away from the language of tension and escalation," the prince said.

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