Defiant Lebanon greets Powell peace mission

A defiant Lebanon greeted US Secretary of State Colin Powell today, with protesters shouting for him to leave and the government saying cross-border attacks on Israeli troops would go on.

‘‘There is a very real danger of the situation along the border widening the conflict throughout the region,’’ Powell said after meeting President Emile Lahoud.

‘‘It is essential for all those who are committed to peace to act immediately to stop aggressive actions along the entire border.’’

Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud said Israel was responsible for the flare-up in fighting because it has not withdrawn from occupied Arab territory.

Earlier, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said his government would tell Powell that cross-border guerrilla attacks against Israeli forces were likely to continue.

But the government seeks to confine the fighting to a disputed area on the border with Israeli-occupied Syria, and not allow attacks into northern Israel, Aridi said in a TV interview shortly before Powell arrived.

Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians demonstrated on the road to the airport as Powell arrived, burning US and Israeli flags and shouting: ‘‘Oh, God!, Powell Out!’’ and ‘‘Death to America! Death to Israel!’’

Under heavy security, the secretary of state was whisked to the presidential palace on a different road and did not pass the protest near the Palestinian refugee camp of Bourj el-Barajneh.

In southern Lebanon, about 1,000 Lebanese students demonstrated today in the 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.

Aridi accused the United States of being indifferent to the killing and suffering in the Palestinian territories and to the prospect of that conflict’s escalating into a regional conflagration.

‘‘For the Americans, it is 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,’’ Aridi said in an interview with Lebanon’s Future television.

‘‘What is important for them (the Americans) is Israel’s security,’’ the minister said.

The US is trying to broker a ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and return the warring parties to the negotiating table.

Powell, who flew to Damascus from Beirut, was visiting Lebanon and Syria to ask their governments to rein in Hezbollah guerrillas who have been attacking Israeli troops from south Lebanon on an almost daily basis for the past two weeks. He also met Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Aridi said there could be no solution to the fighting without recognition of Palestinian rights and a withdrawal from occupied Lebanese and Syrian land.

‘‘It is legitimate for these (Arab) countries to defend their rights, land, sovereignty, people, security, stability and future. We did that and we will continue. This is what I think Powell will be told,’’ he said.