ROME - Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has broken ranks with fellow members of the right-wing opposition by challenging the country's decision to send peacekeeping troops to Lebanon.

"Today, it seems that (the UN-backed peacekeeping mission) is not to disarm Hezbollah, and I do not think we can still agree with that," Berlusconi said in a speech late Saturday in the eastern town of Rimini.

Italy is one of several European countries contributing to a bolstered UN force in southern Lebanon intended to police a ceasefire which ended a month of fighting between the Israeli military and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

The UN says disarming Hezbollah will be the responsibility of the Lebanese army and that the foreign peacekeepers do not have a mandate to do so.

Representatives of Berlusconi's right-wing opposition coalition had backed the decision last month to join the Lebanon mission, and a key ally of the former prime minister warned that to change position on the deployment would be "very serious".

"It is not possible to not vote for this mission, that would be very serious for the country's interests," said PierFernandino Casini, an ally of Berlusconi in his House of Liberties coalition.

Berlusconi made his comments in a speech to the opposition group that he heads, setting out his plans for "inflexible opposition" to the centre-left government of Prime Minister Prodi, "in parliament and in the streets".

This pledge drew an expression of support from Gianfranco Fini, a right-wing former foreign minister. "That's how it must be done," Fini said.

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