Syrian battalion to deploy along Lebanese border

By JPOST STAFF AND AP

A week after Germany said that it still hoped to win

Syrian help in resolving the conflict in Lebanon, and

that the countries' foreign ministers had held fresh

talks, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced

Friday that Syrian President Bashar Assad had

assented to deploy a battalion to the Lebanese border

 in order to prevent arms smuggling.

Russia to probe Hizbullah weapons

Annan added that Assad had already asked Germany for help in training and equipping its forces for the mission, Israel Radio reported.

Last week, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said in an interview that the international community would not tolerate Syrian arms shipments to Hizbullah or other violations of the UN resolution that ended a month of fighting between Israel and the Shi'ite organization.

'The Syrians must know that if weapons come from Syria or acts in violation of UN Resolution 1701 are committed, the international community will not stand by and watch,' D'Alema told RAI state radio.

The UN has said that so far there are no plans to deploy its strengthened peacekeeping force along Lebanon's border with Syria, something that Assad has said he would consider a hostile act.

Al Qaeda in Iraq followers told to kill 'at least one American'

POSTED: 2155 GMT (0555 HKT), September 7, 2006

(CNN) -- The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq urged his followers to kill at

least one American in the next two weeks using a sniper rifle, explosive

 or "whatever the battle may require," according to an audiotape that

aired Thursday on Al-Jazeera.

The Arabic news network identified the man on the tape as Abu Hamza

 al-Muhajer, however CNN was unable to independently verify his identity.

Al-Muhajer took command of the terror network's partner group in Iraq after an American airstrike killed its former leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in June, U.S. officials say.

Al-Muhajer, which means "the immigrant," is the pseudonym adopted by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian militant believed to be an expert at making car bombs, U.S. officials say.

"I invite you not to drop your weapons, and don't let your souls or your enemies rest until each one of you kills at least one American within a period that does not exceed 15 days with a sniper's gunshot or incendiary devices or Molotov cocktail or a suicide car bomb -- whatever the battle may require," the speaker says on the tape.