Seized weapons 'will be used by Lebanese army'

Lebanon’s defence minister said today that a truckload of ammunition belonging to the Hezbollah seized the previous day would be used by the Lebanese army in case of future Israeli attacks.

Minister for defence Elias Murr said the ammunitions, which were seized in an east Beirut suburb, would not be returned to the Hezbollah as the militants demanded.

“The truck and the weapons are now in the south … and we will use them tomorrow morning if there is an Israeli violation,” Murr said after talks with the new commander of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, Major-General Claudio Graziano of Italy.

Murr’s comments are likely to add to tensions in the ongoing power struggle between the US-backed government in Beirut and the Hezbollah-led opposition seeking to topple it.

Hezbollah had acknowledged the ammunition belonged to the group and demanded the government immediately release the shipment.

It urged the government to abide by its own policy, proclaimed in 2005, to support the “resistance” in the south – which is Lebanese shorthand for the guerrilla movement.

In a televised interview, Murr criticised Hezbollah’s statement, saying he would have liked to see the group offer the shipment to the Lebanese army which on Wednesday engaged in a shootout with Israeli troops on the tense Israel-Lebanon-border.

It was the most serious clash since last summer’s war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Under a UN resolution that ended the war, Hezbollah is banned from rearming but Murr said in the interview that the truckload of ammunition came from within Lebanon.

“Not even a mosquito” could cross the Syrian-Lebanese border, he said, in references to allegations of Syrian assistance to Hezbollah.