Beirut

Lebanon was on a knife-edge on Wednesday, with the assassination of another leading anti-Syrian politician adding to fears the country may be again torn apart by civil strife. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, scion of one of the country’s most prominent Christian families, was gunned down on Tuesday in an attack that drew condemnation from world leaders.

Lebanese Christian Cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, an outspoken critic of Syria, was assassinated near Beirut on Tuesday, plunging Lebanon deeper into a crisis that threatens to destabilise the country. At least three gunmen rammed their car into Gemayel’s vehicle, then leapt out and riddled it with bullets, witnesses said.

Lebanon’s political crisis deepened on Monday as the last pro-Syrian minister quit the Cabinet shortly before it met to discuss the framework of a special court to try killers of a former prime minister. The anti-Syrian majority coalition has accused Hezbollah of carrying out a Syrian-Iranian plan to overthrow the Western-backed government.

Lebanon said on Saturday that it had been informed by United Nations peacekeepers that Israel was finally poised to complete its promised pull-out from the south. A government spokesperson said the commander of the UN force in Lebanon had told Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora that Israel would pull out the last of its troops on Sunday.

Israel dropped at least 350 000 cluster bomblets on south Lebanon in its war with Hezbollah guerrillas, mostly when the conflict was all but over, leaving a deadly legacy for civilians. ”The outrageous fact is that nearly all of these munitions were fired in the last three to four days of the war,” said David Shearer, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.

Israel lifted its eight-week sea blockade of Lebanon on Friday after an interim maritime task force, led by an Italian admiral, deployed off the Lebanese coast, the commander of the United Nations peacekeepers said.

Israel began on Thursday to lift a blockade of Lebanon imposed when it went to war with Hezbollah guerrillas eight weeks ago, and a Lebanese airliner landed at Beirut’s patched-up airport to mark the moment. The Middle East Airlines flight from Paris circled over Beirut to celebrate the demise of the air embargo after intense diplomacy led by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The commander of United Nations peacekeepers said a joint meeting with Lebanese and Israeli officers on Monday had brought closer a full Israeli troop withdrawal from south Lebanon, in line with a UN resolution. Major General Alain Pelligrini met representatives of the Lebanese and Israeli armies at his headquarters in the southern Lebanese port of Naquora.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan will see the destruction in southern Lebanon at first hand on Tuesday when he visits the area during a Middle East tour designed to cement a truce between Israel and Hezbollah. On the first stop of his tour, Annan issued a warning in Beirut on Monday that all sides must fully implement UN Security Council resolution 1701 or face a possible new war.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan told Lebanese ministers on Monday he wanted the two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah sparked a 34-day war with Israel to be handed to the Red Cross, a government source said.

France will greatly increase the size of the contingent it is promising for a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, possibly making it easier to recruit other nations, officials and diplomats said on Thursday. Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema said he expected French President Jacques Chirac to announce a ”substantial increase” in the contribution.

Three Lebanese soldiers were killed on Wednesday while clearing unexploded Israeli shells in southern Lebanon, underscoring the dangers of a region awaiting the deployment of thousands of United Nations peacekeepers. The three men were the first Lebanese troops to die since the army began moving south last Thursday.

Italy has offered to lead a United Nations force for Lebanon, but a week after a truce calmed Israel’s war with Hezbollah guerrillas, few other countries with proven military capacity have made substantial commitments. European Union countries are meeting on Wednesday to discuss concerns about clear rules of engagement for the force.

United States President George Bush called on Monday for the urgent deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force to southern Lebanon to shore up a week-old truce between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. He said there will be another UN resolution on the rules for such a force. ”First things first will be to get the rules of engagement clear,” he told a news conference in Washington.

Lebanese army troops prepared to move on Friday to the edge of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, the main flashpoint for fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas before the war that a United Nations truce has halted. Trying to consolidate the five-day-old truce, the UN said it has received substantial offers of more troops for Lebanon.

Armed only with shovels and plastic buckets, a few dozen volunteers struggled on Thursday to scrape oil-stained sand off a Beirut beach as environmental groups began the monumental task of cleaning up tonnes of oil spilt across Lebanon’s coast. ”This is the biggest environmental disaster in the Mediterranean basin, we can say that very easily,” said environmental group Green Line.

Lebanon’s government on Wednesday ordered 15 000 troops to move south to take full control, with United Nations peacekeepers, when Israeli troops withdraw after a 34-day war with Hezbollah guerrillas. Officials said Lebanese troops would deploy south of the Litani River, about 20km from the Israeli border, on Thursday.