Lebanese refugees stream home as ceasefire takes hold

SYRIA: Lebanese refugees, some carrying what they could in plastic bags and others wearing designer labels and driving SUVs, poured through border crossings from Syria after the UN-brokered cessation of hostilities came into force.

They all had one aim: to return home.

A family of 10 was crammed into a minibus, its roof piled high with mattresses, at the Syrian frontier post of Jadaideh, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Damascus.

"Love of our country and the desire to go home and see if it is still standing - that's what pushes us to return to an uncertain future," the family's head, Ahmed Shumar, told AFP.

He was taking his family home to their village of Marj Marun in the Nabatiyeh area, after 21 days of exile.

Another family of returnees was on foot. The father grasped a gas bottle in one hand and a plastic bag in another. His son held a cage containing two pigeons bought in Syria that he did not want to leave behind.

Syrian border officials are gearing up for a busy few days. During nearly five weeks of conflict in Lebanon, Syria became host to at least 100,000 displaced Lebanese.

"We expect the number of crossings to peak in about four or five days," an immigration official told AFP. "That's when people will know if the ceasefire is holding or not."

Meanwhile as a truce between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas entered its second day on Tuesday, planning got underway for a beefed up U.N. peacekeeping force to back the Lebanese army when it deploys to the south.

Ground clashes, Israeli air strikes and Hizbollah rocket fire ceased on Monday as the fragile truce took hold, encouraging droves of Lebanese refugees to return to southern villages devastated by the month-long war.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was relieved that the cessation of hostilities demanded by a Security Council resolution adopted on Friday, "appears to be generally holding".

French military officers headed to the United Nations to discuss the boosted U.N. peacekeeping force France is expected to lead, U.N. and French officials said.

At a meeting on Monday of some 20 potential troop contributing countries, participants said that a concept of operations would be ready by Thursday at another session of interested nations, according to diplomats at the meeting.

"We have no formal, specific commitments from troop contributors, but obviously we're continuing those discussions," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. "We have one leg up in that there is already a U.N. force in south Lebanon."

Lebanon's Defence Minister Elias Murr said the Lebanese army would send 15,000 troops to the north of the Litani River around the end of the week, ready to enter the southern border area.

But he said the army would not be disarming Hizbollah guerrillas, who have controlled the area for six years.

"The army is not going to the south to strip Hizbollah of weapons and do the work Israel did not," he told LBC Television.

"The resistance is cooperating to the utmost level so that as soon as the Lebanese army arrives in the south there will be no weapons but those of the army."

Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his fighters had won a "strategic and historic victory" over Israel and that it was the wrong time publicly to discuss disarming them.

But U.S. President George W. Bush said Hizbollah, which is backed by Iran, had been defeated and accused the Islamic Republic of meddling in Lebanon and Iraq.

"In both these countries Iran is backing armed groups in the hope of stopping democracy from taking hold," Bush said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is facing domestic pressure over his handling of the Lebanon war, told parliament Israel would pursue Hizbollah leaders "everywhere and any time".

Jadaideh, Beirut, Tuesday, AFP, Reuters