UN envoy allays fears of war

Beirut: The United Nations' top envoy to Lebanon sought to ease Middle East war jitters Wednesday, insisting that the region was not headed toward a fresh conflict pitting Israel against Arabs despite potentially explosive reports of Scud missile transfers and ongoing fighter aircraft manoeuvres.

Michael Williams, the UN's special coordinator for Lebanon, told reporters here that his agency had been in touch with both Lebanese and Israeli government officials as well as the Shiite military and political organisation Hezbollah and was convinced that a sharp spike in regional tensions was receding.

"I think there is too much at stake to lose for all the parties," he told reporters after a meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, according to an official transcript. "I think tensions have been high the last few days. But I hope that those will lower now."

US officials have voiced concern about the allegation that Hezbollah has Scuds that could hit Israel's major population centres, but they have not publicly verified or rejected it.

"We are at a point now ... where Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world," US Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters Tuesday at an appearance at the Pentagon with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak. "And this is obviously destabilising for the whole region."

Tensions between Israel and its neighbours rose this month after reports cited anonymous Israeli officials alleging that Syria had transferred medium-range Scud ballistic missiles to Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a bloody standstill in a 2006 war that still haunts the region.

Hezbollah, a strategic ally of Iran and Syria, controls much of southern Lebanon, which abuts Israel's northern border. Israel has invaded Lebanon over the decades to halt militant attacks, occupying the country's south for nearly two decades from 1982, before withdrawing amid mounting casualties.

Lebanese and Syrian government officials have vehemently denied transferring Scuds to Hezbollah. Hariri has likened the accusation to false allegations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 US-led invasion.

"We talk about peace while the Israelis talk about war," Hariri said Tuesday after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm Al Shaikh. But Hezbollah itself has kept mum about whether it has Scuds.

It was obliged to disarm under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which halted hostilities in the 2006 war, but now publicly boasts that it is armed with more and longer-range missiles than before the conflict, during which it showered northern Israel with rockets.

Scuds, which are at least 9 metres long, have a minimum range of 177 kilometres. Hezbollah leader Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah warned in February that his organisation could strike Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport, about 128 kilometres from the Lebanese frontier, if Israelis target Beirut's airport.

Meanwhile, Israeli fighter jets cross into Lebanese airspace almost daily, also violating the terms of the 2006 truce and raising fears of an impending conflict involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, a strategic ally of Damascus as well as of Hezbollah.