'UN will do Israel's occupying'

2006-07-29 16:53

An Israeli gunner prepares the next shell as a heavy artillery piece fires at targets in southern Lebanon near the Lebanese border in northern. (Jacob Silberberg, AP)

Damascus - Syrian state media has slammed United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's call for an international force in southern Lebanon as "an occupation force" that would do Israel's job.

"The international force proposed by Condoleezza Rice ... will occupy southern Lebanon and it, instead of Israel, will be charged with eradicating the Lebanese national resistance," said an editorial in the official Tishrin daily on Saturday.

The paper said the proposed force would likely be drawn from Nato forces.

Rice returned to the Middle East on Saturday, in a bid to get agreement on a United Nations security council resolution on the conflict in southern Lebanon, now in its 18th day.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said world powers would meet at UN headquarters to discuss the possible deployment of a multinational stabilisation force in Lebanon on Monday.

- AFP