Hizbullah reiterates rockets threat

MIDDLE EAST:Hizbullah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah has reiterated in a TV interview that the Lebanese movement could strike any location in Israel.

Speaking on al-Jazeera and Hizbullah's own TV station on Monday night, he repeated a claim that its rockets could have targeted Tel Aviv during last summer's 34-day conflict between Hizbullah and Israel but said the movement had decided not to take this step. "We could absolutely do that now," he stated.

Hizbullah fired 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during this period.

Mr Nasrallah said last summer's war had not diminished the movement's military capabilities and revealed that its arsenal has been rebuilt. His assertion about the renewal of its stock of long-range rockets was confirmed by senior Israeli security sources.

But these officials denied that Hizbullah rockets could reach as far south as Tel Aviv. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev declared the movement's rearmament "is a direct and grave violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701" which brought an end to the war and called on the international community to hold Syria and Iran, which he said had supplied arms to Hizbullah, accountable.

Meanwhile, in response to threats from al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and intelligence reports that the 13,000 strong UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) could come under attack from Sunni militants, France, Italy and Spain, the main contributors of contingents, have apparently asked Hizbullah fighters to accompany patrols.

In June, six Spanish and Colombian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb believed to have been planted by Sunni militants, an action characterised by Mr al-Zawahiri as a "blessed operation." This was the highest number of fatalities since the force was established in 1978. Last week, a Unifil jeep was damaged by a bomb. Unifil has had covert contacts with Hizbullah since the Shia movement rose in south Lebanon during the 1980s.