UK airlifts 80 people from Beirut; sends ships

LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) Britain airlifted almost 80 people from Lebanon today and sent four ships to the region for a potential mass evacuation as Israel continued to bombard the country.

Royal Air Force (RAF) Chinook helicopters flew two separate groups of some 40 people to Cyprus in London's first official evacuations since the conflict escalated.

Two additional ships were dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean to join two Royal Navy warships in the area, a Defence Ministry spokeswoman said.

Foreign office minister Kim Howells said the evacuation of some 12,000 British nationals and some 10,000 dual nationals, plus other Commonwealth citizens, would be an operation on a scale not seen since the 1940 evacuation of more than 300,000 troops from Dunkirk and the surrounding beaches.

Any mass evacuation could begin within the next few days.

Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to act as quickly as possible to get more expatriates out, saying Britain was seeking to establish an ''air bridge'' -- using helicopters to take people to nearby safe havens -- to evacuate urgent cases.

''We have got a rapid deployment team now in Lebanon, in Beirut, seeing how quickly we can do this,'' he told reporters at the G8 summit in St Petersburg.

''We are looking at the possibilities of an air bridge, though that is complicated for very obvious reasons by what has happened to the airport in Beirut,'' Blair said. ''But we will do everything we can, particularly to get the most needy out as quickly as we can.'' Today's evacuees were mainly women, children and those in need of medical care, said a Foreign Office spokesman, although none was suffering injuries from the conflict.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who visited Beirut on Sunday, was among the evacuees, officials said.

Most of those evacuated were British, but some dual-nationals and some other EU nationals were among the 40.

A Defence Ministry spokeswoman said 3,500 to 4,000 British families and 10,000 dual nationals were registered in Lebanon.

Howells said agreements with other Commonwealth countries meant Britain may have responsibility to evacuate their citizens too.

James Watt, Britain's ambassador to Lebanon, said the advice to remaining British nationals in Lebanon was to ''stay put and keep safe'' until a larger evacuation was possible.

He said he hoped the Royal Navy ships would be in a position to begin that evacuation ''within the next day or two''. Safe passage of evacuees would be agreed in advance with Israel, as it was for Monday's helicopter evacuation.

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