LEBANON - Aug 17 - Leaders Act To Rebuild Country's Broken Bridges.

Powerful private-sector business leaders pledge to rebuild Lebanon's shattered bridges in a rapid show of national unity over post-war reconstruction. With Israeli troop withdrawals from the south under way, the promised infrastructure repairs around the country will speed up emergency aid shipments to the south and pave the way for longer-term national economic revival. Najib Mikati, former PM and a leading telecommunications investor, kicked off the reconstruction frenzy by commissioning Dar al-Handassah, a west Beirut-based civil engineering firm, to rebuild the Madfoun bridge linking north Lebanon to the capital. The Hariri family, including parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, followed on Aug 17 with promises to restore three bridges in the north and five in the heavily devastated south of the country. The family's construction firm, Geneco, will start work within days, said Amal Mudallali, a spokeswoman for Hariri. As always in Lebanese business and politics, sectarian self-interest is one of the factors at work. Mikati's main power base is Tripoli, a northern port city dominated by Sunni Muslims. Hariri's is Sidon, another Sunni coastal stronghold within the mostly Shi'ite south. Christian-controlled corporations, such as Casino du Liban and Bank Byblos, have also stepped up to the replace the knocked-out highway overpasses serving their sections of the country. But despite this typically Lebanese division of responsibilities, Ms Mudallali dismissed any suggestion of political motives at a time when "everyone must pull together to help the country". Jealousies between political rivals might spur greater reconstruction efforts, she added. Since Aug 14 ceasefire it is the reconstruction efforts of Hizbullah - the Shi'ite militia that sparked the crisis with its capture of two Israeli soldiers - that have attracted most attention. State reconstruction officials say direct damages from the 34-day war add up to around $3.5 bn, including $1.5 bn for bridges, roads and other infrastructure. Indirect economic losses, felt by the entire country, are probably even higher, says Marwan Barakat, head of research at the Beirut-based Bank Audi. Officials from Lebanon's politically weak central government promise a wide-ranging reconstruction plan covering the "whole cycle" of economic rejuvenation. In the meantime, however, the government wants the private sector to move quickly to tackle the most urgent problems. Since the ceasefire, international relief convoys, along with tens of thousands of returning residents, have started crawling southwards over the mostly dry riverbeds. Bridge repairs are "the key issue" before the winter rains, relief workers say. The legal framework being drafted will allow private investors to employ their own reconstruction assets with minimal bureaucratic interference, officials say. The country's total needs should be clearer by the end of this month, when international donors meet in Stockholm to pledge financial assistance. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which already shored up the Lebanese currency with deposits to the central bank during the conflict, have offered a further $500m and $300m respectively in post-war assistance, Lebanese bankers say. The finance ministry, while looking forward to the infusion of reconstruction money, hopes to avoid adding to the external debt burden, already too high before the war. Officials welcome local reconstruction efforts from any quarter, including Hizbullah. The mainly southern-based movement's theologianal leaders have offered to rebuild the estimated 15,000 gutted homes in its parts of the country. Aid and reconstruction efforts are inevitably also linked to political authority over economically marginal Shi'ite communities. But the assistance offer from Hizbullah - which has 14 of the 128 seats in parliament - is "nothing unusual" and "not an effort to block the government", says Mazen Hanna, PM Fouad Siniora's economic adviser. Hanna denied the state was competing with Hizbullah to exert authority over war-damaged Shi'ite areas. The Shi'ite organisation also has its own civil engineering arm, Jihad al-Binaa, which carried out Iranian-funded housing and water-supply contracts in poor areas before the war. Social welfare schemes - with no mark of state involvement - help to secure local loyalties. "Everything we have comes from Hizbullah", said a resident of Haret Hreik, one of the southern suburbs pummelled by Israeli air raids this month. Even so, the Shi'ite welfare network lacked the central government's capacity for large-scale reconstruction, including strategic planning and zoning authorities, Hanna said. "This is not just a question of paying out", he said.