Biden makes a strategic visit to Lebanon ahead of crucial elections

US vice-president Joe Biden held discussions in Lebanon yesterday with the country’s president, Michel Suleiman, ahead of the crucial June 7th parliamentary election.

Mr Biden’s visit, the first for 25 years by an official in his post, and another last month by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, demonstrate the Obama administration’s concern over the likely ouster of the ruling pro-Western coalition by Hizbullah and its allies.

Hizbullah, dubbed a terrorist group by Washington, said these visits created “strong suspicion and amounted to a clear and detailed interference in Lebanon’s affairs”.

The movement, aligned with Syria and Iran, is seeking to increase the representation of its Shia-Maronite Catholic bloc in the 128-member national assembly and form a government.

Mr Biden said the US would re-evaluate assistance to Lebanon following the election. Since 2006, Washington has provided $1 billion in aid to Lebanon, nearly half to bolster its army and police which are outgunned by Hizbullah’s militia.

Washington has cultivated relations with the prime minister, Fuad Siniora, and his partners in spite of the veto Hizbullah and its allies enjoy in the cabinet.

This policy, adopted originally by the Bush administration, contrasts sharply with the US boycott of the Palestinian Hamas movement, also backed by Syria and Iran.

Mr Biden’s arrival coincided with an accusation by Hizbullah deputy Nawaf al-Moussawi, who claimed that Israel has recruited spies to locate the movement’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who has been in hiding since 2006.

Mr Moussawi, Hizbullah’s leading foreign policy official, said his assassination would “set the region ablaze” and warned that Hizbullah is preparing for such a possibility.

Eighteen suspects have been arrested, including a retired brigadier general, a maths teacher, a mobile phone operator and a village deputy mayor, who testified that he had been ordered to make contact with Sayyed Nasrallah.

Six suspects remain at large. Four escaped by smuggling themselves across the border into northern Israel.

American University of Beirut analyst Rami Khoury suggested that the arrests are a result of investigations by Syrian and Lebanese intelligence agencies into the killing last year in Damascus of Imad Mughnieh, Hizbullah’s military chief.

Hizbullah blames Israel for his death and vows vengeance.

On Thursday, Beirut filed a complaint to the UN over Israel’s alleged spy ring, citing its activities as a “violation of Lebanese sovereignty”, and calling on UN peacekeepers to repatriate suspected Lebanese spies who fled to Israel.

Lebanon remains in a state of war with Israel and persons convicted of treason face execution or life imprisonment.

In recent years Israel has accused a number of its citizens of Palestinian origin of spying for Hizbullah.

In 2007, Azmi Bishara, a legislator, fled the country shortly before Israel decided to charge him with transmitting sensitive information to Hizbullah during the 34-day war Israel waged on Lebanon in 2006.

Israel’s internal security agency recently warned Israelis that enemies are using Facebook and other social networking internet sites to recruit spies or collect “classified information on security targets”.