Thousands of supporters flow to the Victory Rally

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Thousands of Hezbollah supporters packed Beirut's bombed-out suburbs for a rally Friday intended to showcase the group's insistence that it won't disarm. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah will also address the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon, which for years has been controlled by the militant group, Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahhal told The Associated Press on Friday.


The U.N.-brokered cease-fire that ended fighting between the guerrillas and Israel on Aug. 14 calls for stripping Hezbollah of its weapons, but Nasrallah has been defiant.

The group would not say whether Nasrallah would speak in person or address the rally by video link. But Lebanon's two leading newspapers, An-Nahar and As-Safir, reported Friday that Nasrallah would show up.

Nasrallah's presence would serve as "a strategic, political and security challenge to all Israeli threats" to kill him, As-Safir reported.

It would be the guerrilla leader's first public appearance since July 12, when Hezbollah's cross-border capture of two Israeli soldiers touched off a 34-day war and forced him into hiding.

Roads toward Lebanon's capital were packed with cars and buses waving Hezbollah flags Friday, hours before what was billed as the country's largest rally to showcase the group's insistence that it won't disarm. Hundreds of Hezbollah supporters from across south Lebanon began marching toward Beirut a day earlier.

Two hours before the rally, thousands of people had already arrived at the site on foot, in buses and in cars, chanting Nasrallah's name and waving Lebanese and Hezbollah flags.

In the southern port city of Tyre, some 200 people, including veiled Shiite Muslim women clad in black and holding their children, boarded large minivans bound for Beirut.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said thousands of buses, minivans and cars were streaming toward Beirut from the south and the eastern Bekaa Valley. Members of Christian parties and pro-Syrian groups in northern Lebanon were also traveling to the capital to participate in the rally, the broadcast said.

During its 34-day offensive, Israel threatened to kill Nasrallah. An attempt to assassinate him now was considered unlikely since it would risk plunging the region back into conflict.

Nasrallah had called for the rally to celebrate the "divine and historic victory" over Israel.

Nicolas Nassif, a political analyst at Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is close to Hezbollah, wrote Thursday that Nasrallah was expected to issue important messages at the rally, including that the group would not disarm.

The gathering is intended as a show of strength by Hezbollah at a time of increased friction with the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.