A Lebanese newspaper, Al-Mustaqbal, reported Wednesday what it has described as a "positive development" emerging in negotiations for a prospective Israeli-Hizbollah prisoner exchange. According to the newspaper, the deal could involve a release of Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, who Hizbollah is interested in freeing from Israeli custody. The newspaper, owned by Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, says that efforts to arrange a swap involving Israeli prisoners and/or missing servicemen were intensified in the last few days, according to an Israeli news agency. (Read photo caption)

However, Hizbollah has refused to supply further details on the emerging deal, nor to respond to Israeli demands for more information about its missing men, the newspaper says.

U.S. WORRIED ABOUT HIZBOLLAH THREAT TO ISRAEL

Last week, the United States has again called on Iran, Syria and Lebanon to stop attacks by Hizbollah fighters across Israel's northern border area, which experts fear could ignite a wider Middle East war.

"We're asking all the parties to use their influence on Hizbollah to get Hizbollah to stop attacking Israel," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a news briefing on Monday, June 17, 2002, referring to the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Lebanese Resistance group.

"It's an ongoing problem which requires periodic reiteration whenever there might be signs, as some have said, of a resumption of violence across this border," Boucher said.

The Washington Post last week reported a build-up of forces on Lebanon's side of the border and signs of a variety of new weaponry, including missiles capable of reaching major northern Israeli towns or shooting down planes.

Hizbollah fighters clash regularly with Israeli occupation troops in a disputed area of the border with Lebanon, known as 'The Shebaa Farms'.

HIZBOLLAH'S POWER BASE

According to Western analysts Hezbollah's successes in the 1992 and 1996 national elections underlined its shift from a revolutionary to a reformist movement. Hizbollah is now part of the political system. The prestige it has won in the wake of Israel's humiliating retreat from the South has urther boosted its influence on the national level. The sources believe that Hizbollah is unlikely to put all that at risk by carrying out reckless attacks on northern Israel.

The Israeli government has warned that such attacks would invite massive retaliation. The ensuing damage and destruction would erode Hezbollah's power base.

PHOTO CAPTION


Hizbollah official Sheikh Nabil Kawook upon his arrival at Naqoura village on the border with Israel welcomes a Hizbollah guerrilla member, Mohammed Ali Barzawi (R), June 10, 2002. Israel on Monday freed a member of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group it had held 15 years, sending him across the border into south Lebanon where he was showered with roses as a returning hero. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi
- Jun 10 1:06 PM ET