About 1,100 Americans leave Lebanon -US officials

WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) About 1,100 American evacuees today left Lebanon by sea and air bound for Cyprus, the largest group of U.S. citizens to have been rescued from the country in a single day, U.S. officials said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said roughly 900 Americans were aboard a private passenger ship, the Orient Queen, that left the port of Beirut early today.

The ship was due to arrive in the early hours tomorrow at the Mediterranean island, said a U.S. State Department official, who asked not to be named because his agency was not leading the operation.

A further 200 Americans were also ferried from Lebanon in helicopters and another vessel today, the State Department official added.

The departure of the Orient Queen, a ship owned by a Lebanese company, was a major expansion of the U.S. evacuation of its citizens.

During an eight-day campaign of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, the United States has evacuated a total of more than 1,400 Americans from Lebanon in an operation intended to ferry thousands more over the next few days.

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