The pro-Syrian Hezbollah on Friday slammed Washington's dispatch of the USS Cole to waters off Lebanon as military interference, as the Western-backed government said it did not ask for the warship to be sent.
The condemnation came as pro-government dailies saw sending the vessel as a clear signal to Syria, which is being blamed by the ruling majority for blocking a presidential vote in Beirut. "This decision proves that it's the United States which is interfering in Lebanese affairs, and that this interference has taken on a military slant," Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan told AFP.
The United States said on Thursday it had sent the guided-missile destroyer to the waters off Lebanon, which has been embroiled in a paralysing political crisis for months. It is "a show of support for regional stability" because of "concern about the situation in Lebanon," a US official said on condition of anonymity, declining to say that the show of force was meant for Syria or Iran.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, whose government is backed by the West and most Arab countries, stressed during a meeting with Arab ambassadors that Beirut did not ask for the warship and summoned a top US diplomat for "clarifications."
"We did not ask anyone to send warships," Siniora said, adding that no US warship was in "Lebanese waters." Earlier Siniora summoned US charge d'affaires Michele Sison "to ask her to clarify the presence of the USS Cole" in the Mediterranean, a government source told AFP.
"Mrs Sison assured him that the warship was in international waters and had been dispatched to guarantee regional stability," the source added. Lebanon has been without a president since last November amid political feuding between the Western-backed ruling parliamentary majority and the opposition, backed by Syria and Iran.
The majority accuses Syria of blocking efforts to elect a new president in Lebanon, which was under Syrian military domination for 29 years until Damascus withdrew its troops in April 2005.
Fears of civil strife in Lebanon have mounted over the continued deadlock and warnings of wider conflict after the February 12 assassination in Syria of top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh.