Salim Hoss

Two Lebanese-American members of Congress, Reps. Mary Rose Oakar (D-Ohio) and Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), flew to Lebanon on Friday to try to persuade warring factions to accept an Arab League peace plan. Clovis Maksoud, ambassador of the Arab League in the United States, said that Oaker and Rahall, as influential members of the Lebanese-American community, will meet with Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, leader of the Lebanese Christian community, and Sunni Muslim leader Salim Hoss and leaders of other factions.

Acting Lebanese Premier Salim Hoss on Friday withdrew the resignation of his caretaker Cabinet to avert a power vacuum if Parliament fails to elect a new president in the next three weeks. "We inform you that we have withdrawn the Cabinet's resignation, which had been announced by the late Premier Rashid Karami," Hoss, a Sunni Muslim, said in a letter to President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Catholic.

Christian leader Michel Aoun today accepted a seven-point Arab peace plan aimed at ending the 6-month-old blood bath between his forces and Syrian troops, who control 70% of the country. Arab League envoy Lakhdar Ibrahimi made the announcement after an hourlong meeting with Maj. Gen. Aoun at his office in a bunker under the bomb-ravaged presidential palace.

Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, commander of the Lebanese army and leader of the country's Christian Cabinet, fired four colonels Tuesday in a shake-up aimed at supporters of former President Amin Gemayel. The shake-up, apparently designed to consolidate Aoun's power within the army, brought his most trusted aides to top military posts. It preceded the first meeting of Aoun's Cabinet, which Gemayel, a Christian, appointed before his six-year term ended last week.