July 28 (Bloomberg) -- Lebanon's government is keeping its army away from the battlefront between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters because it lacks the firepower to sway the conflict and fears it may spark a civil war by intervening.

The Lebanese army, which split when the country was plunged into civil war in 1975, was reunited in 1990 from religious factions including Christians and Muslims who previously fought one another. Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group, controls two of 24 cabinet posts and has 14 of the 128 seats in parliament.

``The Lebanese army won't disarm Hezbollah,'' President Emile Lahoud told reporters in Beirut yesterday. ``Disarming Hezbollah by force may lead to a civil war.''

Stripping the ``Party of God'' of its weapons is Israel's main condition for a cease-fire to end fighting that killed at least 405 Lebanese and 51 Israelis since July 12. Israel says it will keep pounding Hezbollah targets in Lebanon until the group is driven from the border to a distance at which it can no longer launch rocket attacks against Israeli cities.

Hezbollah said today it fired a new kind of missile into Israel for the first time in the 17-day conflict, Nawwar Sahili, a Hezbollah member of parliament, said in a telephone interview.

The Shiite organization fired a Khaibar-1 at the northern town of Afula, which lies about 37 miles (60 kilometers) south of the Lebanese border, Sahili said.

``We are against escalation but we will not stand by while our people are dying because of the Israeli aggression,'' he said, without providing further details. ``We had no choice.''

No Casualties

The missile was carrying about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of explosives, and landed in an open space, causing no casualties, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said by phone. Hezbollah had previously been using shorter-range Katyusha rockets.

``There's no force in Lebanon that can keep Hezbollah from throwing rockets into Israel,'' Mahmoun Fandy, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said in a telephone interview. ``The government doesn't have the political will or strength to confront Hezbollah's militia, who could ransack the whole Lebanese state if they wanted to.''

Israel today struck as many as 130 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, using planes and artillery, a day after ruling out an increased land offensive. It also hit an aid convoy heading for the Lebanese city of Tyre, injuring two people, according to Sky News. A Sky reporter who was in the convoy said the group's organizers had advised the Israeli military of their intended route before traveling. It wasn't immediately clear whether the attack was an air strike or from ground fire, Sky said.

UN-Sponsored Force

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week called for talks on a United Nations-mandated force to help the Lebanese army restore peace in south Lebanon. Israel says such a force should not be led by the UN. Hezbollah, sponsored by Iran and Syria, rejects a deployment replacing Israeli troops. Today she called for an early cease-fire.

U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair will press President George W. Bush to back an immediate cease-fire between Israel and the Shiite Islamist Hezbollah movement and to work on a United Nations resolution spelling out the terms of a peace plan, a spokesman said. The two are holding talks today in Washington.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the 46-year old Hezbollah leader, is confident that Lebanese military forces, which include sympathetic Shiite Muslims, won't confront his militia.

``The army refuses to be part of the plot against the Hezbollah,'' Nasrallah said in a video message aired on the party's al-Manar television station July 26.

Aging Soviet Tanks

The Lebanese army, with about 40,000 troops, is larger yet weaker than Hezbollah's militia, which has several thousand fighters, said Brigadier General Walid Sukkarieh. Lebanon's ground forces have aging Soviet tanks and lack anti-aircraft or anti-ship weapons. It has an annual budget of about $500 million, according to the Central Intelligence Agency's Web site.

Hezbollah has about 12,000 rockets and has improved its technology with guided missiles that were used to attack an Israeli ship off the coast in mid-July, according to military experts. The militia is better equipped than the army, said Sukkarieh.

Israel's Hezbollah targets, including rocket launchers, were hit during the night in the city of Tyre, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and in southern Lebanon, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said, speaking anonymously by regulation. One of the raids destroyed Hezbollah's regional command center in Tyre that directed rocket attacks on Israeli towns, he said.

Israel today warned residents of villages from Qlaile in the west, through Siddiqine, Sultaniye, Majdel Silim and up to a point west of the village of Houla, near the Israeli-Lebanese border, to flee their homes and move northward by 10:00 a.m. today.

Risk of Disintegration

The Lebanese army would ``likely disintegrate if it clashes with Hezbollah because it is made of soldiers and officers who belong to the different communities that make up Lebanon, and to a significant extent the Shiite community,'' said Sukkarieh.

Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, is aware of Lebanon's weakness, even as he pushes for implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559. The resolution, adopted in September 2004, calls for disarming Hezbollah and deploying the Lebanese army throughout the country.

Israel plans to hold onto a chunk of southern Lebanon, recreating a ``security zone'' it occupied for 18 years, until an international force can ``strengthen the Lebanese army'' so it can reclaim the region from Hezbollah, the government said in a statement this week.

No Combat Capabilities

``Everybody who knows the Middle East knows Lebanon isn't a serious state and the Lebanese army isn't going to be serious and capable either,'' said Gerald Steinberg, political science professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. ``It has no combat capabilities, only the ability to police Lebanon's streets.''

Lebanon's streets are the government's biggest concern. The country of 3.8 million is made up of 17 different Christian and Muslim sects, and Nasrallah says his party represents the Shiites, the largest and poorest of the Mediterranean nation's communities. About 70 percent of the population is Muslim, half of which are Shiite, while the remainder are Christian.

Confronting Hezbollah may split Lebanon's military along sectarian lines that triggered civil war between 1975 and 1980, the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, said in a July 20 report entitled `Lebanon's Weak Government'.

Hezbollah, formed in 1982, has been linked to scores of attacks on Israelis and Americans, including rocket attacks on Israeli towns, the 1983 bombing that killed 241 U.S. soldiers in Beirut, and the 1994 attack that killed 95 at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The U.S. and Israel have designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

Shiite Personnel

In addition, about 7,000 Shiite members of the Lebanese army would probably immediately desert and join Hezbollah if the government sent troops into the action, said Fandy.

That's one reason why Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's Future Tide coalition, which represents Sunni and Druze and has 72 of 128 seats in parliament, is pushing for a diplomatic solution.

``Since we can resolve this matter diplomatically then why should we go to war,'' Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general. said by telephone from Beirut. ``If you want the army to tackle Hezbollah then you have to take a political decision and Hezbollah is represented in this government. It's undoable.''

On the Sidelines

Standing on the sidelines while war rages is a familiar role for the Lebanese army. The military stood by as Israeli forces invaded the country in 1982 to attack Palestinian fighters led by Yasser Arafat. Lebanon failed to deploy its army along the southern border with Israel when Israeli troops ended their 22- year occupation of Lebanon in 2000.

For almost 30 years, Syrian forces were the dominant power. Syria occupied Lebanon in 1976 and deployed as many as 40,000 forces throughout the country. It ended the occupation last year after the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005 sparked anti-Syrian protests in Beirut.

Memories of the 15 year civil war that claimed an estimated 100,000 Lebanese lives are still raw. Mounting casualties in the current conflict with Israel, which has also cost the Lebanese economy $4 billion, make it even less likely that the government will risk a confrontation with Hezbollah.

``If you're asking the Lebanese army to fight Hezbollah then you're asking a Shiite to go and fight his brother,'' Hanna said. ``Israelis are bombing their homes, their families. There's sympathy with what Hezbollah is doing.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Bentley in Ankara at mbentley3@bloomberg.net; Maher Chmaytelli in Beirut through the Sydney newsroom or mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 28, 2006 11:42 EDT