BEIRUT, Lebanon - The visit to the United States by anti-Syrian Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblat has sparked an intense campaign against him in Lebanon, especially by his opponents from the Lebanese Shiite movement, Hezbollah.

"The man (Jumblat) has sold himself to the devil," Hezbollah's politburo member Mahmoud Kommati said.

"Jumblat is probably preparing a second war on Hezbollah with his new allies," Kommati said.

Israel launched a widescale offensive against Hezbollah on July 12 after the Lebanese militia snatched two of its soldiers from southern Lebanon.

The war lasted 33-days during which 1,200, mostly Lebanese civilians, and 162 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed.

Jumblat, a staunch anti-Syrian lawmaker, is leading a Lebanese delegation that includes Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh and former deputy Ghattas Khoury.

"I am here (in Washington) to seek US help to combat the totalitarian regimes of Syria and Iran which seek to dominate my country through their Hezbollah agents," Jumblat said in the US capital.

Jumblat, who arrived in Washington on Sunday, has been received by US president George W Bush and held meetings with other senior US administration officials including Secretary of Defence Robert Gates. He is scheduled to meet Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday before returning home.

According to the Lebanese media, top US officials promised Jumblat that they would work on "strengthening the Lebanese army and security forces to secure law and order in the country."

They added that Lebanese Defence Minister Elias al-Murr will be next to visit Washington to discuss US assistance for the army.

According to well-informed Lebanese officials, the US administration plans to invite other Lebanese leaders to visit Washington for similar talks, including anti-Syrian Christian leader, Samir Geagea, who is the head of the Christian Lebanese Forces.

Lebanon has been reeling under the worst political crisis since the 2005 assassination prime minister Rafik Hariri which was widely blamed on Syria and its Lebanese allies.

The crisis intensified three months ago after the opposition, led by the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah, decided to stage an open- ended sit-in to overthrow the Western-backed government of Fouad Seniora.

The standoff has led to clashes between supporters of the opposition and followers of the government which resulted in the killing of seven people and the wounding of more than 200 others.

The confrontations has also taken quickly a sectarian turn between Hezbollah and the Sunni-led Government. The government currently has no Shiite representatives after all Shiite ministers quit last November.

The opposition along with their ally Christian hardliner Michel Aoun, wants to replace the current government of Seniora with a national unity government which will give the opposition a veto power.

This demand was rejected by the current government who accused the opposition of trying to obstruct the formation of an international court to try suspects in the assassination of Hariri.

The anti-Syrian camp, who are today a majority in the Lebanese parliament, believe that the opposition want to block the formation of the court to protect their Syrian allies who were implicated in the Hariri killing by an ongoing UN investigation.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa, who heads the 22-member Arab League, has been trying since December to mediate between the political factions in Lebanon, but until now his efforts have proved unsuccessful.

Mussa warned on Tuesday that Lebanon would "burn" if one party won over the other in a power struggle that has threatened a second civil war in the country.

Lebanon was engulfed by civil war from 1975 until 1990. The civil war was ended in 1989 by a Saudi-brokered national reconciliation agreement called the Taef Accord. -DPA