WASHINGTON (AFP) – US officials urged Lebanon’s Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun to back a broad, reform-minded coalition for his country but renewed their opposition to the militant Islamist group Hezbollah. Former Prime minister Aoun,  and now a member of the Lebanese parliament, met with senior US officials as part of a two-week visit to the United States begun on November 14.He conferred with David Welch, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and was meeting later Wednesday with Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, number three in the State Department.

A State Department official, who asked not to be named, said the talks covered the investigation into the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.Also discussed was this week’s violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border and UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah as well as an end to the Syrian presence in Lebanon. "We are encouraging … General Aoun to support a broad coalition of political parties as Lebanon struggles to implement political economic and constitutional reforms," the official said.

JERUSALEM, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Israel plans to return the bodies of three Lebanese Hizbollah gunmen slain in a fierce border clash, in hope of easing tensions with the guerrilla group and Beirut, Israeli security sources said on Thursday. Four gunmen died during a Hizbollah raid on Monday which Lebanese security sources said aimed, but failed, to seize Israeli soldiers who could be traded for Arabs jailed in Israel.

One of the dead was retrieved by the Lebanese but the rest remained on the Israeli side of Ghajar, a divided border town. Eleven Israeli soldiers were wounded in the clashes, the fiercest since the Jewish state withdrew forces from southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation. Israel retaliated for the Hizbollah raid with shelling and air strikes.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) NOV23 – Israeli troops exchanged fire with Hizbollah gunmen Wednesday to provide cover for an Israeli paraglider pilot who drifted into Lebanon by accident, military sources said. They said the paraglider, which took off from the Israeli border town of Manara, went astray and landed just inside Lebanese territory."Soldiers who were near that […]

 POL-US-LEBANON-AOUN  Lebanese MP General Aoun supports disarming Lebanon’s Hizbollah WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (KUNA) — Lebanese MP, General Michel Aoun, said on Tuesday he supports the disarmament of Hizbollah.Aoun, a formerly exiled Lebanese Prime minister who recently returned to his country after Syria’s withdrawal this year, made the remarks at a news conference one day after Hizbollah fighters clashed with Israeli soldiers on the uneasy border between Israel and southern Lebanon, where Hizbollah remains largely supported by the majority Shiite Lebanese there.

"Hizbollah has real backing from Shiites and is a political force, but it is time for them to become part of making Lebanon a great country again," said Aoun, adding that security could be restored in Lebanon by the disarmament of groups outside the central government. At least three Hizbollah fighters were killed by Israeli forces in the most escalated fighting between the two sides since Israel withdrew from Lebanon five years ago. Aoun, who is on a week-long visit to Washington, said he met with members of Congress and US officials at the State Department and National Security Council (NSC) at the White House to "exchange ideas" on issues of interest pertaining to Lebanon and the Middle East.

BEIRUT, 22 November (IRIN) – "One day the Syrian secret service came to the factory where Koshaia used to work," said Jozef Chehwane, displaying a photo of his cousin. "They asked him to come for five minutes. That was in 1980, but those five minutes have lasted until today." Born in the northern Lebanese city of Batroun, the then 29-year-old Koshaia was a member of the Christian Phalange Party, which was opposed to Syria’s presence in Lebanon.

In 1981, his wife managed to visit him in a jail in Damascus