U S wary of al Qaeda's Lebanese ambitions

OXFORD, England, Sep 23 (Reuters) The United States is taking seriously the possibility that al Qaeda could expand its activities into Lebanon, exploiting the conflict there, Intelligence Chief John Negroponte said.

He said such a move, already publicly urged by al Qaeda leaders, could not be ruled out despite the chasm between the predominantly Sunni Muslim group and Lebanon's militant Shi'ite Hizbollah, which ended a 34-day war with Israel last month.

Mr Negroponte said al Qaeda's ambition to expand in the region had been stated in a letter from its deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri to its then chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which was intercepted and released by the United States last year.

''He talked about the priority attached to being successful in Iraq so it could then be used as a platform to extend their activities into the Levant, meaning Jordan, Syria and Lebanon,'' Mr Negroponte told Reuters and the International Herald Tribune in an interview yesterday.

''It's not clear to me whether or not they've got a basis for successful activity in Lebanon, since the stronger Muslim sect in Lebanon is Shia. But I wouldn't rule that out. And there's been some evidence of al Qaeda activity in Lebanon,'' he added without elaborating.

Al Qaeda has highlighted the conflict in Lebanon in its messages to supporters, with Zawahri urging them this month to fight United Nations forces there as ''enemies of Islam''.

In a tape released on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, he said: ''I call on every sincere Muslim who is able to reach south Lebanon to rush to defeat the Zionist forces invading Lebanon ... to strive with everything at our disposal to set up a jihad base on the borders of Palestine.'' However, some security analysts are sceptical that al Qaeda could forge an alliance across the sectarian divide with Hizbollah.

They see its recent statements more as a bid to avoid being eclipsed by Hizbollah, which has won wide admiration around the Arab world for taking the fight to Israel and surviving the ensuing bombardment. Its leader boasted yesterday it still had more than 20,000 rockets intact.

Mr Negroponte, speaking to reporters at a conference of the Oxford Analytica think-tank, said an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight, uncovered by British police in August, was a ''very vivid reminder'' of al Qaeda's ambitions.

''Notwithstanding the fact they have been debilitated and weakened by events after 9/11, by the denial of their sanctuary in Afghanistan, the vigorous efforts we have taken to go after al Qaeda, they still continue to plot against the United States and the United Kingdom and the West in general,'' he said.

REUTERS BDP BS1007