US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced visit to Beirut yesterday to seek a "sustainable" ceasefire in Lebanon, where Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli forces are fighting in the south.

 

Rice met Prime Minister Fouad Siniora after her heavily guarded motorcade sped through Beirut from the US embassy to the north where her helicopter had landed from Cyprus.

 

A US official in Rice's party said she would announce aid for Lebanon, where Israeli bombing has displaced half a million people and wrecked installations worth an estimated US$1 billion.

 

Rice has no plans to meet Hezbollah leaders, but was due to see Shi'ite Muslim Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a pro-Syrian politician who has acted as a link between the Islamist group's leaders and Siniora since the war erupted.

 

 

Hezbollah said it had shot down an Israeli helicopter and hit five tanks, inflicting casualties in fierce battles that erupted after Israeli forces pushed north from a border village.

 

Israeli tanks had driven north from the border village of Maroun al-Ras, captured in heavy fighting last week, towards the town of Bint Jbeil, about 4 kilometers inside Lebanon.

 

"We believe that a ceasefire is urgent," Rice told reporters during her flight to the Middle East. "It is important to have conditions that will make it also sustainable."

 

 

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who wants to swap the two soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinians in Israeli jails, said Israel's assaults would not stop cross-border rocket fire. "I assure you that this goal will not be achieved," he said.

 

Israel, after initially dismissing the idea, now says it would be willing for an international force to dislodge Hezbollah from south Lebanon and take control of Lebanon's border with Syria to stop the guerrillas re-arming.

 

(China Daily July 25, 2006)