BEIRUT, Lebanon - Police on Thursday arrested four people and seized a large quantities of weapons, explosives and fuses in raids against a pro-Syrian party.

Syrian Social National Party leader Ali Kanso condemned the raids, saying the party had kept the cache since the early 1980s when it took part in fighting Israeli forces in south Lebanon.

Kanso said the SSNP had nothing to do a mysterious campaign of bombings and assassinations in Lebanon over the past two years.

A police statement said Prosecutor-General Saeed Mirza ordered the raids in the north Lebanese district of Koura after receiving information that explosives were stashed there. Police found large quantities of explosives with electrical fuses and timers as well as a large quantity of weapons. The statement did not name the party or say the raids were connected to the bombing campaign.

Many Lebanese have blamed the attacks on Syria, which had troops in Lebanon for 29 years until huge protests and international pressure forced their withdrawal in 2005. After the Nov. 21 assassination of Christian Cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, a mob of his supporters attacked an office of the SSNP.

"Stop your campaigns against us. We are not a militia and we are not a party of murderers," Kanso said at a news conference hours after the raids.

Nobody has been charged in bombings and assassination, which are being investigated by the U.N. team looking into the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose February 2005 death helped hasten Syria's withdrawal.

The SSNP is a secular ultranationalist party advocating a greater Syria that encompasses Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait and Cyprus. It once fielded street fighters in Lebanon during the country's 1975-90 civil war and was active in south Lebanon, fighting against Israeli troops in the 1980s.

Kanso suggested that police were targeting his party because of its alliance with opposition groups that have been staging large protests in a bid to force the resignation of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. Saniora has refused to step down, accusing the opposition of attempting a Syrian-backed coup.

The opposition, led mainly by the Syrian-backed Hezbollah group, has accused elements of the police of siding with the government in the political crisis.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad met Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who has been trying to broker an end to Lebanon's crisis

"We are moving toward reaching a Lebanese reconciliation," Moussa after meeting with Assad. "What is important is to salvage the Arab world from the woes of divisions and threats of what we are seeing in the region."

Over the past week, Moussa has managed to get the Lebanese sides to agree on the outlines of a national unity Cabinet — a key opposition demand — and the creation of an independent committee to study an international tribunal to try the Hariri's alleged killers.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told Moussa that Syria supported his efforts and stressed "Syria's keenness for Lebanon's stability and security and its support for what the Lebanese might agree on without any foreign interference," Syria's official news agency said. -AP