TEHRAN One thousand Lebanese soldiers and police on Wednesday completed the biggest security deployment to South Lebanon since Israel ended its 22-year-old occupation in May, Reuters reported from Bint Jbail.
Lebanon is under international and local pressure to wrest control of the South from the Islamist Hizbollah freedom fighters who drove out the Israeli Army. Israel quit South Lebanon on May 24.
A convoy of 500 soldiers and 500 policemen set off from Beirut before dawn.
It left less than 24 hours after the Lebanese government finally decided to send its own troops to the South, which had been occupied by Israel since 1978.
Eyewitnesses said more than 600 troops took up positions in Marjayoun, the main Christian town in the South. A further 300 soldiers and policemen deployed in Bint Jbail, a mostly Shiite Muslim town further east.
Hizbollah positions in both areas remained intact.
An army spokesman said the force would conduct patrols in the South but added that it would not fan out along the frontier, which remains under Hizbollah's control.
A Reuters correspondent in Marjayoun saw eight armored cars heading out of their main barracks in the town to begin the first patrol of the area.
Earlier women hurled rice and flower petals at the troops arriving at Marjayoun base, the former headquarters of Israel's South Lebanon Army client militia.
The Lebanese troops join more than 400 UN peacekeepers who have taken up 18 positions in the South and along the frontier.
The UN troops have yet to complete their deployment.
Although Lebanon sent 100 policemen to the area after the Israeli pullout, it has delayed deploying the army.
Sporadic violence has broken out in the South since the withdrawal, most recently on Sunday when four civilians were wounded by Israeli gunfire at Fatma Gate a defunct crossing between Israel and Lebanon.
On Tuesday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed senior aide Rolf Knutsson to coordinate UN activities in the South, including possible aid.