KFAR MATTA, Lebanon (AFP) – Fifteen years after the end of Lebanon’s civil war, residents of Kfar Matta — the scene of bloody sectarian massacres — are to vote on Sunday for tickets grouping long-time Druze and Christian foes.
“The alliance between Christian and Druze candidates is a good thing and a first step towards reconciliation,” said Shaheen Ghareeb, a Druze resident of this mountain village outside Beirut.
Ghareeb said he would cast his ballot in the third round of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections Sunday for a list headed by Druze chief Walid Jumblatt, who has forged an unlikely alliance with jailed Christian warlord Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces despite their bloody history.
Geagea’s militia slaughtered between 100 and 270 Druze civilians in Kfar Matta as clashes between the rival forces swept the region in 1983.
A year later, when Jumblatt and his Shiite allies moved in, Christians fled and their homes were taken over by Druze, who are members of a breakaway sect of Islam.
United Nations may send a verification team back to Lebanon following reports that Syrian intelligence may not have completely withdrawn from the country, Secretary General .jpg)
Beirut 
BEIRUT: Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called for political “reconciliation” and urged Lebanon’s politicians to put “the past behind” them. Nasrallah’s remarks came as he urged Shiites to support Hizbullah’s decision to put up a candidate for Sunday’s Mount Lebanon polls on the electoral list of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and former foes, the right wing Christian Lebanese Forces.
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer, UNITED NATIONS – A top U.N. envoy was instructed Monday to travel to Syria “as soon as possible” to see President Bashar Al-Assad about Lebanon, but U.N. officials would not say why the mission was deemed urgent. The announcement that Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked Terje Roed-Larsen to travel to Damascus came three days after the United States said it would like the U.N. Security Council to expand an international inquiry into former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination to include the killing of an anti-Syrian journalist.Roed-Larsen stepped down as Annan’s top U.N. Mideast envoy last year, but agreed to become his special envoy for implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which was adopted in October and called for Syria to withdraw all military forces and intelligence operatives. It also called for disarmament of all Lebanese militias.
BEIRUT (AFP) – The pro-Syrian Hezbollah coalition scored a landslide win in round two of Lebanon’s elections and claimed a clear mandate for anti-Israel guerrillas to keep their weapons in defiance of international calls for disarmament. The mighty Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the rival movement Amal, campaigning on a pledge to keep on with the armed resistance against Israel, won all 23 seats in southern Lebanon, Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa said Monday. In the first elections to be held since Syria was forced by intense global pressure to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April, the two groups maintained their grip on the volatile southern region still intermittently rocked by border clashes with Israel.
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Voters go to the polls in south Lebanon on Sunday in the second phase of parliamentary elections with the country rattled by the assassination of a prominent anti-Syrian journalist. A slate led by Syria’s allies Hizbollah and Amal groups looks assured of victory in the Shi’ite Muslim heartland bordering Israel but the killing of columnist Samir Kassir on Thursday has again raised the stakes at the polls.The disparate anti-Syrian opposition put some of its differences aside to join voices in blaming Syria and its security allies for the killing and called for the resignation of President Emile Lahoud, a close ally of Damascus.Several opposition figures said his resignation would be the new parliament’s main task after the May 29-June 19 elections. The opposition called on Friday for a gathering at a crossroads leading to Lahoud’s presidential palace on Monday “to declare the responsibility of the chief of the Lebanese-Syrian security regime for the series of assassinations.”
A prominent Lebanese journalist was today assassinated when a bomb exploded in his car, police said. Officers said Samir Kassir was killed when a device left under the driver’s seat exploded. He was a columnist for An-Nahar, a leading newspaper frequently critical of Syria and the former Lebanese government that was allied with Damascus. The explosion, which happened in the Christian Ashrafieh neighbourhood of Beirut this morning, set the car on fire. Mr Lahoud’s spokesman, Rafik Shalala, described the murder as a “grave incident”, and said the president had ordered an investigation. “It’s better not to make accusations until the circumstances are uncovered,” he told the al-Arabiya television channel. To view pictures pls click read more.
BEIRUT, June 2 (Reuters) – Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement is contesting parliamentary elections in the south on Sunday in alliance with Amal, the other major Shi’ite Muslim group.
