Hezbollah mobilizes support for Syria

BEIRUT -- The leader of Hezbollah, the militant Shi'ite Muslim movement that for weeks has stood on the sidelines of Lebanon's political upheaval, called yesterday for national demonstrations against what he characterized as foreign influences seeking to expel the party's Syrian sponsors from the country.

The announcement by Hassan Nasrallah, a Shi'ite cleric who is Hezbollah's secretary general, dashed the hopes of Lebanese opposition leaders that the large, disciplined movement would join their cause to drive Syrian troops and intelligence services from Lebanon. The first demonstration is scheduled for tomorrow in Beirut, along an avenue near the central square where Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition movement has staged round-the-clock protests since the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14.

Nasrallah appeared after what he called an emergency meeting of more than 30 political parties aligned with the Syrian government, which is facing international pressure and a popular uprising here to end its 30-year presence in Lebanon. The meeting was convened hours after President Bashar Assad of Syria outlined a staged shift of Syria's 15,000 troops in Lebanon to the countries' common border, a plan criticized by US and French officials who have demanded an immediate withdrawal of Syrian forces and intelligence services.

Lebanese officials said that the redeployment would begin today after a meeting in Damascus, the Syrian capital, between Assad and Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's president, to set a timetable.

''Freedom means that we decide for ourselves the best way to address what we see today as clear intervention of the United States and France in Lebanese internal affairs," Nasrallah said at a news conference in the Shi'ite suburbs of south Beirut.

''The opposition must give us explanations regarding the foreign intervention. We must convince each other that only true sovereignty means independence."

Nasrallah made his defiant stand as the Lebanese opposition, an alliance of Christian, Druze, and Sunni parties, has turned its attention to winning parliamentary elections scheduled to be held this spring in the hopes of forming a government free of Syrian influence. Nasrallah seemed to serve notice that Hezbollah and the array of smaller pro-Syrian parties intended to mount a unified campaign to prevent a government hostile to Syrian interests from emerging after the elections.

The Lebanese opposition movement has lacked large numbers of Shi'ites, who account for most of Lebanon's 4 million people. But the movement's leaders said yesterday they were heartened by Nasrallah's call for peaceful demonstrations and promises to respect political differences.

''In the end we are calling for a democratic country, and so these demonstrations should be allowed," said Ghattas Khoury, a member of parliament who belongs to Hariri's legislative bloc. ''If they win the elections, we will go along with them. If we win, then they should go along with us."

With a highly structured organization and an armed wing celebrated here for helping end the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah is perhaps the most formidable player in the power-sharing system here populated by religious-based parties. Linked to the 1983 bombings of the US Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, Hezbollah is now recognized as a legal party in Lebanon and controls a 12-seat bloc in parliament. The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, as well as its satellite television channel, and the European Union is considering adopting a similar designation.

Nasrallah's ability to mobilize perhaps hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah followers for demonstrations, not including other large Shi'ite, Sunni, and pan-Arab parties that will probably also take part, threatens to expose a deep gulf in Lebanese society that Syrian officials have warned could widen into the sectarian strife that fueled its 15-year civil war.

In his speech to parliament Saturday, Assad said, ''We should not remain in Lebanon one day after there is a Lebanese consensus over our presence," something Hezbollah's counterdemonstrations are likely to show does not exist.

Syria, which sent troops to Lebanon in 1975 at the invitation of its embattled Christian president, has long served as the gatekeeper for Iranian-supplied arms and money flowing to Hezbollah. The party, in turn, has become its proxy army against Israel along Lebanon's militarized southern border. The UN Security Council resolution passed with US and French support last year calls on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and for Hezbollah's rapid disarmament.

Known among opponents as one of Lebanon's shrewdest political operators, Nasrallah was careful to characterize the demonstrations as protests against foreign interference in Lebanon, not rallies in support of Syria, whose longtime presence here he praised.

Instead of the party's distinctive yellow banner bearing a fist clenching an AK-47 rifle, the red-and-white Lebanese flag served yesterday as Nasrallah's backdrop, the same symbol of national unity being used by the opposition.

In pledging to withdraw his forces to the eastern Bekaa Valley and then the border, Assad essentially agreed to comply with Syria's commitments under Lebanon's 1989 peace agreement.

Assad and Lahoud, whose term was extended by the Lebanese parliament last year under Syrian pressure, are scheduled to meet today to set a timeline expected to conclude the redeployment's first phase before the spring elections.

But Egypt and Saudi Arabia, among other Arab states, have called on Syria to comply with the stricter UN resolution, which calls for an immediate Syrian withdrawal and Hezbollah's disarmament, something Nasrallah said would not happen.

There is little doubt here that the demonstrations will be enormous, given the size of Hezbollah's membership and party discipline.