Lebanese Army Begins to Deploy Across South

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon, Aug. 17 -- For the first time in a generation, Lebanese troops, tanks and armored vehicles deployed in force Thursday into the country's south as part of a U.N. cease-fire that ended 33 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militiamen. But the deployment appeared to reflect the complicated reality of the Shiite Muslim militia's determined presence in southern Lebanon.

After dawn, scores of troops moved down the Bekaa Valley along the border with Syria, across makeshift bridges over the Litani River into the Christian town of Marjayoun and through the seaside city of Tyre. There were occasional scenes of joy, but across much of the south, the deployment was a relatively sedate affair, as the extent of the damage became apparent in southern towns such as Bint Jbeil, Aitaroun and Khiam, and as tens of thousands of refugees continued to return home along jammed roads.

At one point, a funeral for two Hezbollah fighters stopped a military convoy for a half-hour in Jwayya, near Tyre. On the road to Marjayoun, decorated with posters celebrating the resistance, military trucks mingled with cars flying yellow Hezbollah flags.

"The resistance has to stay here," said Khalil Taraf, 55, a resident of the Shiite town of Dibin, near Marjayoun. "Who would protect us from aggression?" He added, "Both need to protect us -- the army and the resistance."

The deployment followed the government's decision Wednesday to send army troops south of the Litani River, which bisects southern Lebanon. The decision itself was potentially momentous: The Lebanese state had surrendered some of its sovereignty over the south in 1969, when a weak government agreed to allow Palestinian guerrillas to launch attacks against Israel. By 1976, soon after the start of the civil war, the government's authority in the south had disintegrated as militias began to consolidate their control over the rugged, hilly terrain.

But in recognition of Hezbollah's stature in the wake of the cease-fire, the government said its soldiers would neither act against the militia's guerrillas nor try to disarm them. That arrangement effectively continues the prewar relationship between Hezbollah fighters in the south and what was then a token presence of the Lebanese army. Hezbollah accepted the army's deployment, and its officials said the fighters would assume the role they played before the war: rarely seen with arms in the open, often melting into the population.

The United Nations said about 1,300 Lebanese troops had arrived in the south by day's end Thursday.

Israeli officers met with U.N. military officials and Lebanese army officers to plan the Israeli military's departure from Lebanese territory. A senior Israeli officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said about 8,000 Israeli troops remain in Lebanon, from a high during the war of 15,000 to 20,000. Israeli soldiers watched as the Lebanese army moved south of the Litani, and Israel plans to turn over more positions on Friday, the officer said. He said Israel expects the Lebanese army and U.N. soldiers to curb Hezbollah militiamen, despite the Lebanese acceptance of Hezbollah's presence on the ground.

Those forces should "take steps to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding itself. I want them to control the borders, especially between Lebanon and Syria, to prevent weapons from coming in," he said.

Israel has said it is ready to leave Lebanon as soon as Lebanese and international forces arrive.

In southern Lebanon, few spoke out against the deployment; many seemed to feel it was a welcome gesture by a state that has often neglected the poorer south. In Marjayoun, one woman threw rose petals and rice at the trucks parked near her restaurant.

"Forty years!" cried the 51-year-old woman, Salma Shahin. "We've had to live through war for 40 years.