Lebanon PM Warns Army Will Seize Weapons

A Spanish UNIFIL soldier, right, stands guards with a M60 machine gun next to Lebanese soldiers, left, at the beach in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006. Around 570 Spanish soldiers should be landing Friday in Tyre. Spain's contribution to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is the third largest by a European Union state. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) (Francois Mori - AP)

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The Lebanese prime minister warned Thursday that his army will seize all weapons shown publicly in southern Lebanon, offering a sharp retort to a boast from Hezbollah's leader that his fighters are on the border with Israel and won't leave.

A month into the U.N. cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, the United Nations said the truce is holding well, but the comments underscored growing friction between the Islamic militant group and the Lebanese government, which is led by opponents of Hezbollah's patron Syria.

"I intend for the Lebanese army to prove its presence in the area south of the Litani River," Prime Minister Fuad Saniora told reporters after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

"We want this area to be under the army's and the Lebanese state's control. The army has all the authority to ban any armed appearances and confiscate those weapons," Saniora said.

Some 15,000 Lebanese soldiers, backed by an equal number of U.N. peacekeepers, are deploying in the zone between the Israeli border and the Litani, about 18 miles to the north, to enforce the truce and a ban on Hezbollah weapons.

Saniora made clear his troops will not actively hunt for hidden Hezbollah arsenals. But he insisted his Western-leaning government will no longer allow the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah to dominate the south.

The U.N. cease-fire calls for the guerrillas to eventually be disarmed, but neither the Lebanese army nor U.N. soldiers want to provoke a confrontation with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview aired late Wednesday that Israel's monthlong offensive had failed to dismantle Hezbollah or push the guerrillas north.

"There is no demilitarized zone south of the Litani. The resistance (Hezbollah) is present south of the Litani and is present in all of south Lebanon," Nasrallah told Al-Jazeera television.

Hezbollah fighters, who have controlled parts of south Lebanon for years, are believed to be lying low and blending in with the local population _ as they did before the war.

Hezbollah's senior political officer in the south, Sheik Hassan Ezzeddine, said the group was exercising "self-restraint" in the face of what he called Israel's "flagrant violations" of the U.N. truce.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Israel was not violating the cease-fire.