President Lahoud's regime and Syria's allies are fielding tens of thousands of slogan-shouting demonstrators for a Beirut parade Tuesday to plead with President Assad to defy a U.N. resolution demanding full termination of Syria's 28-year-old tutelage over Lebanon. Hizbullah is spearheading the demonstration that organizers say it will amount to a public rejection of U.N. interference through resolution 1559 in the domestic affairs of the two neighboring allied countries. They contend an early pullout of the Syrian army would reignite the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

Organizers have hired thousands of vehicles to carry their supporters and the government was preparing to put 3,000 security officers on Beirut's streets for the pro-Syrian demonstration. Some schools were given the day off Tuesday.

The U.S. Embassy, in a warden message, told American citizens to avoid the areas where the demonstration takes place from the mid-city horse-race track to the posh downtown district. All streets along the course of the demonstration were closed to traffic.

People were urged through loudspeakers mounted on vehicles touring the Beirut streets late Monday and early Tuesday to join the demonstration "to confront the American-Zionist conspiracy." Portraits of Assad and Lahoud were plastered on almost every street wall in the Lebanese capital.

The demonstration is designed to counter one staged last week by students of various opposition groups, including Gen. Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Walid Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party, which protested Syria's 'abduction' of Lebanon's independence.

Security Council resolution 1559, which was co-sponsored by the U.S. and France, called for electing a new president in Lebanon in compliance with the Lebanese constitution, the complete withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon's entire territories, and a timetabled disarmament of Hizbullah.

But Syria disobeyed. It virtually forced the Lebanese parliament to rubberstamp a 3-year extension for the Damascus-backed Lahoud as president of Lebanon and defied the withdrawal provision as well as Hizbullah's disarmament.

Tuesday's street action in Beirut was described by organizers as a show of loyalty to Syria among the Lebanese and a message to the Security Council to stop meddling in the domestic affairs of Lebanon and Syria.(with AP)