Israel's navy has seized a fishing boat loaded with arms being smuggled by Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas off the Lebanon coast and towed it to the northern Israeli port of Haifa.
There was no immediate word on the vessel's point of origin or destination. Israeli sources said the boat, intercepted yesterday, had a weapons cache only a fraction the size of the 50 tonnes seized on a freighter in the Red Sea in January 2002.
If the arms were bound for Palestinian areas, as was last year's shipment, it would deal another blow to a new US-backed peace plan.
The sources said naval commandos had captured at least two members of the Shi'ite guerrilla group Hizbollah aboard the rickety, 23-foot vessel.