Lebanese crowds in pro-Syria rally

HUNDREDS of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut yesterday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hezbollah that dwarfed previous protests demanding Syrian troops quit Lebanon.

The demonstration took place as the redeployment of Syrian troops to the east of Lebanon, announced on Monday, got under way.

The head of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, urged the Lebanese opposition to reject a United Nations demand for the Syrians to leave and for his own militia to disarm.

"We call ... for the formation of a government of national unity and we ask the opposition to join it," he said.

Mr Nasrallah said no-one in Lebanon feared the United States, whose troops left Beirut in 1984, a few months after a suicide bomber killed 241 marines at their headquarters in the capital.

"We have defeated them in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again," he said, to chants of "Death to America" from the sea of demonstrators.

Meanwhile, in Washington George Bush, the US president, repeated his call for Syria to leave Lebanon before parliamentary elections in May.

In a speech at the National Defence University, Mr Bush argued that recent events in the Middle East, including Lebanese demands for an end to Syria’s occupation, demonstrated that "freedom is the direction of history".

He said: "The uncertainty, sorrow and sacrifice of these years have not been in vain ... the trumpet of freedom has been sounded and that trumpet never calls retreat."

He reiterated his view that the US has a "generational" commitment to reform in the region, and told the Lebanese opposition: "America is on your side.

"Democracy is knocking at the door of this country, and if it’s successful in Lebanon it is going to ring the doors of every regime in the region," he added.