BEIRUT (AFP) -- The Hezbollah 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 paralyzing political crisis for months.
The USS Cole was the target of a bombing by Al-Qaeda extremists in October 2000 in the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
It is “a show of support for regional stability” because of “concern about the situation in Lebanon,” a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
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 U.S. diplomat for “clarifications.”
“We did not ask anyone to send warships,” Siniora said, adding that no U.S. warship was in “Lebanese waters.”
Earlier Siniora summoned U.S. 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. ism.
“On Hezbollah's concerns, I would express some of our own concerns with Hezbollah's actions. So I'll just leave it at that,” White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters.
Lebanese parliament speaker and opposition member Nabih Berri meanwhile said in a television interview that the dispatch of the USS Cole was aimed at giving support to Israel's military action in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
“The goal is to take attention away from what is happening in Gaza. The USS Cole is here to back the Israeli plan in Gaza,” where 31 Palestinians have been killed since Wednesday in Israeli air strikes, he said.
Lebanon has been without a president since last November amid political feuding between the ruling parliamentary majority and the opposition.
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.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah mourned Mughnieh in a massive public rally, threatening “open war” against Israel, which fought a devastating July-August 2006 war against the Shiite group.
“Wars begin by an exchange of messages. The American decision is the first message to its opponents in the region saying 'we are here',” said Wehbe Katisha, a retired Lebanese army general.
Beirut has also been the scene of recent street clashes between supporters of the rival factions, prompting several Persian Gulf nations and Western states to advise their citizens against traveling to Lebanon.