Tensions flare on Israel-Lebanon border, Sharon warns Iran and Syria

SHEBAA, Lebanon, April 7 (AFP) - Tensions again flared on the flashpoint border between Israel and Lebanon Sunday, with Israeli warplanes delivering swift retaliation to Hezbollah guerrilla fire. Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quickly fired off a warning to Iran and Syria, Hezbollah's main backers, not to fan the flames.

Israel's warplanes fired a total of 10 missiles in six air raids after Hezbollah Shiite militiamen fired rockets and mortar shells at an Israeli army base, lightly injuring two soldiers. Two surface-to-air missiles landed near the villages of Kfar Hamam and Rashaya el-Fokhar, police said.

Fifteen minutes later, the planes struck again, firing two more missiles on a valley close to the southern town of Hasbaya, but the attack did not leave any casualties, police said. The Israeli planes also bombed the border communities of Kfar Shuba and Shebaa.

Two Russian-built SAM missiles from the Soviet era were fired at the Israeli planes, but missed their targets, police said. It was the first time SAMs had been fired since Israel pulled out of south Lebanon two years ago, ending 22 years of Israeli occupation.

Israeli troops had also returned fire on the ground before the bombings. Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV defended the militant group's latest attack. The "Islamic Resistance was attacking positions of the occupation forces in the Shebaa Farms," a disputed border area, Al-Manar said.

In the last eight days, clashes have multiplied between Hezbollah and the Israeli army in this disputed border territory. Hezbollah, which was instrumental in forcing Israel's May 2000 troop pullout from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation, has vowed to continue a guerrilla campaign to wrest the Shebaa Farms from Israel.

Israel seized the mountainous region from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war along with the neighboring Golan Heights. The farms are claimed by Beirut with Damascus' consent. Shortly after Sunday's cross-border exchange, gunmen from Lebanon fired on the northern Israeli kibbutz of Manara.

A bomb was also placed near a road leading to Manara, military sources said, without specifying whether any injuries or damage had been caused. Residents of towns in the north were ordered by the authorities to take shelter from the cross-border fire, but were told within an hour that they could come out again.

Israel's Sharon directly blamed Hezbollah's patrons Iran and Syria for the mounting unrest on the border. Israel fears Hezbollah could try to open a second front as Israel mounts its massive military campaign in the West Bank.

Since March 29, Israeli troops have fought their way through city after city in search of extremist groups in the West Bank. "Behind what is going on in Lebanon, there is Iran, which provided thousands of rockets and launchers to Hezbollah," Sharon said on state television. "These operations would not have been possible without help from Syria, which controls Lebanon," he said.

Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres spoke by phone to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking him to put the squeeze on Syria and Lebanon to calm the situation, Peres' office said Sunday night.

Israel has said it does not want to open a second front while fighting the Palestinian uprising, but officials have said they are capable of doing so. The Jewish state has previously warned Lebanon and Syria of a "tough response" if the Hezbollah attacks do not stop.

The deteriorating situation has triggered international alarm and brought global pressure to bear on Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah, but the government has refused to stop the group from attacking the Shebaa Farms. On Sunday night, Lebanon's Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri told US Ambassador to Lebanon Vincent Battle "that Beirut backs the (Hezbollah) resistance operations in the Shebaa Farms area which it claims," but would not tolerate anything beyond the area, a Lebanese diplomatic source told AFP.

The UN representative to south Lebanon, Staffan de Mistura, warned in a press conference late Sunday that "we are in a very dangerous moment" and urged Lebanon to take control of the situation. "We urge the Lebanese authorities to prove with facts what it means to guarantee that the (UN-drawn border) Blue Line does not become a red hot line," said de Mistura, alluding to the UN-recognised border between Israel and Lebanon.

De Mistura said, "It is now 10 days of continuous serious violations of the Blue Line. There have been a variety of incidents and in different places across the Blue Line. 10 incidents in 10 days!" He also demanded that Israel show restraint.

Lebanon arrests four Palestinians over anti-Israeli attack

WAZZANI, Lebanon, April 7 (AFP) - Lebanese security services have arrested four Palestinians for firing on an Israeli position in the border village of Ghajar, security sources said. The Palestinians fired three mortar rounds from a civilian car in Saturday's attack and were captured after a chase, the sources said. One of them was wounded in retaliatory fire by Israeli artillery. The sources said earlier that three Palestinians were arrested.

On Saturday, Lebanese police said the assailants fired six or seven Katyusha rockets at Ghajar from near the village of Wazzani, which lies less than one kilometre (around half a mile) from the Israeli border. The Israeli retaliatory shelling scored direct hits on Wazzani's school and two homes, said an AFP correspondent in the village.

The Israeli army, which blamed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas for the attack, said three civilians were wounded in Ghajar. On Friday, the Lebanese army arrested six Palestinians and seized a Grad rocket battery primed for firing near the village of Rashaya, on the road to the disputed Shebaa Farms also on the border.

The Israeli army, meanwhile, has stepped up its military deployment on the Jewish state's northern border following a string of armed incidents since March 30 in the region, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday. The army has "reinforced its deployment on the border with Syria in case of  a deterioration of the situation," said Maariv.

Dany Ayalon, political adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told Maariv that the Jewish state holds Syria responsible for the incidents on Israel's northern border. A radical Damascus-based Palestinian movement, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), threatened Saturday to attack Israel from southern Lebanon.

"Our faithful members have arms, rockets and long-range artillery which could inflict damage on the Israeli forces," said a high-ranking PFLP-GC member in an interview with Saudi-owned MBC television.

"There are weapons in our positions in southern Lebanon which we haven't used in the past years but if our brothers are the victims of an attack, they have the right to use them," said PFLP-GC deputy secretary general Talal Naji.