500,000 pro-Syrian protestors attend Beirut show of force
 
"About half a million protesters thundered loud support Tuesday as the leader of Hizbullah told the United States to stop interfering in Lebanon and denounced a UN resolution demanding the withdrawal of Syria's army and the disarming of militant groups."
 
FULL STORY at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1110252007544
 
Hizbollah draws vast pro-Syrian crowds
BEIRUT (Reuters) — Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut on Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizbollah that dwarfed previous protests demanding that Syrian troops quit Lebanon.
Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah urged the Lebanese opposition to join a national unity government and reject a UN demand for the Syrians to leave and his own militia to disarm.

"We call... for the formation of a government of national unity and we ask the opposition to join it," he told the rally. Nasrallah said no one in Lebanon feared the United States, whose troops left Beirut in 1984, a few months after a suicide bomber killed 241 Marines at their headquarters in the capital.

"We have defeated them in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again," he said, drawing chants of "Death to America" from the sea of demonstrators. US President George W. Bush again told Syria to take its hands off Lebanon before parliamentary polls due by May. "All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections for those elections to be free and fair," he said in a speech in Washington.

As the mainly Shiite Muslim crowds thronged Riad Solh Square, Syrian forces began moving eastwards under a phased withdrawal plan announced on Monday, the Lebanese army said.

The huge Hizbollah rally was the first major show of popular support for Syria in Beirut since the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri touched off daily anti-Syrian protests, mainly involving Maronite Christians.

Those protests, which drew tens of thousands on Monday, take place in Martyrs Square, just 300 metres from the scene of the gathering organised by Hizbollah and its allies.

Those protests, which drew tens of thousands on Monday, take place in Martyrs Square, just 300 metres from the scene of the gathering organised by Hizbollah and its allies.

The rival rallies, each using the Lebanese cedar flag to show patriotism, reveal deep rifts in Lebanon over Syria's role and the future of Hizbollah.

Hizbollah officials and a pro-Syrian security source said one million people attended the rally and witnesses said the crowds were certainly in the hundreds of thousands.

FULL STORY at http://www.jordantimes.com/wed/news/news1.htm