Powell Fears Lebanese Guerrillas Could Widen Conflict

The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, met with defiance on a visit to Beirut today as he sought to persuade the Lebanese government to put a stop to two weeks of guerrilla attacks that threaten to open a second front in the Middle East conflict.

Thousands of protesters greeted his arrival in the Lebanese capital, blocking off main roads from the airport, burning US and Israeli flags and shouting, "Powell out!" and "Death to America! Death to Israel!"

After a week of a thus far unsuccessful diplomatic tour to broker an Israeli pullout from occupied Palestinian towns in the West Bank, Mr Powell warned Lebanon and Syria that attacks by Lebanese guerrillas along Israel's northern border have created "a very real danger" of widening the conflict.

For the last two weeks, as Israeli troops invaded the West Bank, Hizbullah guerrillas in southern Lebanon have been attacking Israeli troops in the occupied Shebaa Farms area on an almost daily basis. Lebanon claims the Shebaa Farms - a tiny parcel of land on the edge of Syria's Golan Heights - as its territory, and Syria supports the claim. However, the United Nations says Shebaa belongs to Syria and that Israeli troops completed their withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000.

Today, following talks with the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, Mr Powell said: "It is essential for all those who are committed to peace to act immediately to stop aggressive actions along the entire border."

The Lebanese foreign minister, Mahmoud Hammoud, told a joint press conference that Mr Lahoud had replied that Israel bore responsibility for the flare-up in fighting because it had failed to withdraw from occupied Arab territory.

Earlier, the Lebanese information minister, Ghazi Aridi, said his government would tell Mr Powell that cross-border guerrilla attacks against Israeli forces were likely to continue.

Mr Aridi said in a television interview shortly before Mr Powell arrived that the government would attempt to confine the fighting to the disputed Shebaa Farms area and not allow attacks into northern Israel.

He accused the United States of placing Israel's security above the needs of Arabs.

"For the Americans, it's no problem if the region descends into chaos and destruction, sees mass massacres, mass annihilation, an Israeli holocaust against the Palestinians, Nazism, fascism, terrorism, detention camps, expulsions, killings, displacement of people, starving and depriving people of water," Mr Aridi said in an interview with Lebanon's Future television.

As Mr Powell arrived today, about 1,000 Lebanese students demonstrated in the southern city of Sidon, waving a banner that said in Arabic: "Powell, go home." Some schools closed in the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh and students marched through the camp, denouncing Israel's two-week-old military offensive in the West Bank.

Mr Powell has now arrived in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he was due to meet the Syrian president, Bashar Assad. Syria is the main power broker in Lebanon and stations about 20,000 troops in its western neighbour.