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<P><FONT class=bigCrumb face=Arial color=#330033><STRONG>Hizbollah leader says
US offered support deal</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT class=allWide face=Arial size=2>Financial Times</FONT></P>
<P><FONT class=allWide face=Arial size=2>By Gareth Smyth in
Beirut - Nov 16 2001 16:53:14</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT class=allWide>
<P>The leader of Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia Muslim group, said he has rejected
a secret offer from the US to "forgive the past" if Hizbollah dropped its
hostility towards Israel. </P>
<P>Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's claim came in an interview published on Friday in
the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Rai Al Am. He said that unnamed intermediaries had
suggested that the US would "forgive" Hizbollah for alleged involvement in
kidnapping westerners in the 1980s, in the 1983 killing of 241 marines and 17
other Americans in two bombings, and in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight to
Beirut, during which an American was killed. </P>
<P>As a quid pro quo, the US wanted Hizbollah to cut its ties to Syria and
radical Palestinian groups, and give Washington intelligence on militant
Islamist groups. </P>
<P>"Of course we rejected all these offers because we believe it's a political
bomb aimed at finishing off Hizbollah," he said. </P>
<P>Sayyed Nasrallah said that the US offer followed the September 11 suicide
attacks on New York and Washington. </P>
<P>"The United States thought we'd be stricken with fear," he said.
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