They said Lebanese authorities refused to extradite four Lebanese: Imad Moughaniyeh, Hassan Ezzeddine, Ali Atwe and Mohammed ali Hamadeh.

Local media said that during her visit to Beirut earlier this week US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had made the demand to Prime Minister Foaud Seniora.

Three of the four wanted Lebanese - Moughaniyeh, Ezzeddine and Atwe - are accused of participation in a 1983 attack on US Marines headquarter in Beirut in which more than 100 Marines were killed.

The fourth Mohammed Hamadeh, who returned to Lebanon in December after he finished serving his jail sentence in Germany for possessing explosives, is accused by the United States of the 1985 highjacking of a TWA airliner during which a US Navy diver was killed.

Authorities have also rejected a US request to hand over Wassef Hassoun, an American of Lebanese origin who deserted the Marines in 2004 and left Iraq for Lebanon and then left the southern port city of Tripoli for the US. It was reported later that Hassoun has left the US and headed back to Lebanon.

The judicial sources said the general amnesty law which was adopted in 1991 after the 1975-1990 civil war ended in Lebanon covered incidents of which the four were accused. As for Hassoun, the sources gave no reason for rejecting his extradition.