BEIRUT, April 5: Lebanon’s top Shia leader urged Arabs and Muslims on Saturday to resist any American governor or US-backed government setup to run Iraq immediately after the war.

“We as Arabs and Muslims...will not give any legitimacy to any government setup in Iraq under an American administration or through efforts by the American administration to project legitimacy on some who will act according to its instructions,” Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in a statement.

“We must confront any man that America tries to place in the position of administering Iraq under any title,” he said. “Especially when the American man...whose name they are suggesting on the basis that he will come to set up an interim government or administration...is the American who most lives (Ariel) Sharon’s mentality,” he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister.

The retired US general tipped as civilian governor of occupied Iraq visited Israel in 1998 at the expense of a lobbying group — the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs — which argues that the United States needs Israel to project US force in the Middle East.

Lt-Gen Jay Garner also put his name to an Oct 2000 statement blaming Palestinians for the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence and saying a strong Israel was an important security asset for the United States.

Lebanon and Syria, which maintains broad political and military influence in Lebanon, are staunchly opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Sheikh Fadlallah was the spiritual guide to the Hezbollah during the 1975-1990 civil war, when Washington believes it carried out car bombings of its embassy and Marine barracks.

Hezbollah helped end Israel’s 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.—Reuters