BEIRUT, Lebanon - A Palestinian militant group whose bases in the hills near the Syrian border have been besieged by Lebanese troops after the murder of a military contractor said in comments published Thursday that it had captured six soldiers.

An army spokesman denied the claim by the head of the rejectionist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), Ahmed Jibril, reported by Beirut daily An-Nahar and said the high command would put out a full statement later.

"We detained six Lebanese soldiers, one of them an officer, after they approached one of our positions in Kfarazabad on Wednesday," Jibril was quoted as saying in an interview.

"We notified the Lebanese army ... and maybe we will be able to settle the issue in the evening (Thursday)."

Jibril also charged that the army had detained three PFLP-GC militants, one of them a commander, but he gave no further details about the circumstances of their capture.

He hit out at the tight siege imposed by the army on a PFLP-GC base at Sultan Yacoub, some 15 kilometres (10 miles) south of Kfarzabad and said he spoken to Lebanese Prime Minsiter Fuad Siniora about the deployment by telephone Wednesday evening.

"I told him that we not against the army deploying provided they did not come near our bases," Jibril said.

Some 300 troops backed by 30 armoured cars took up position Wednesday across the border area where a number of Palestinian rejectionist groups allied with Syria retain a series of bases.

The deployment followed the murder on Tuesday of Mohammed Ismail, a surveyor working under contract to the Lebanese army. His killers are believed to have found refuge in one of the Palestinian bases.

It also came as UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen presented a report in New York Wednesday charging that the continued presence of armed Palestinian militants in Lebanon violated a Security Council resolution in September last year.

That text called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, eventually prompting Syria to end a 29-year military presence in April, as well as the disarmament of all militia groups, Lebanese or Palestinian.

"The existence of armed groups defying the control of the legitimate government, which by definition is vested with a monopoly on the use of force throughout its territory, is incompatible with the restoration and full respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence of the country," Roed-Larsen said in his report.

He condemned the "illegal transfer of arms and people toward armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon, which has threatened to cast a shadow on the efforts aimed at bolstering Lebanon's sovereignty."

Lebanese security sources said earlier this month that another Palestinian militant group whose bases were surrounded by the army Wednesday -- Fatah-Intifada -- had received a consignment of weapons from Syria.

Tensions between Lebanon and neighbouring Syria have been running high following a report by a UN commission of inquiry implicating senior officials in Damascus in the murder in Beirut in February of five-time premier Rafiq Hariri.

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