The U.S. Sixth Fleet is said to be monitoring boats headed for Lebanon in an effort to block an escape route for Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden.

Lebanese sources said U.S. naval vessels and F-14 combat aircraft have been patrolling the eastern Mediterranean to monitor sea traffic to Lebanon. The sources said the U.S. effort was meant to ensure that Bin Laden or his Al Qaida combatants could not escape Afghanistan and find a haven in Lebanon.

 The Sixth Fleet has stopped boats from Cyprus. Bin Laden agents are believed to be located in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

The sources said one Lebanese boat was intercepted on Saturday after its left the Cypriot city of Limassol on its way to the Lebanese port of Silaata. The ship was contacted by radio from a U.S. naval vessel in the eastern Mediterranean and later U.S. sailors boarded the Lebanese ship and inspected the crew members.

Bin Laden has a haven in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein Hilwe near Sidon. About 100 members of the Bin Laden-aligned Usbat Ansar group are in the camp out of the reach of Lebanese security forces.

The Lebanese have orders not to enter Ein Hilwe. In Washington, FBI official Thomas Wilshere told a congressional hearing that Bin Laden forces have received advanced training in southern Lebanon.

Wilshere told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee's terrorism panel that Bin Laden has trained British nationals for attacks in Yemen. Larry Johnson, deputy director of the State Department's office of counterterrorism from 1989-1993, agreed.

Johnson urged the Bush administration to crack down on Lebanon. "Apart from Afghanistan, there is no other country in the world, not one, that has as many terrorist training camps, as many activist terrorist groups, and terrorists that have killed Ñ until 9/11 Ñ more Americans than any other group in the world," Johnson said.

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