Hezbollah bridge in Bangladesh renamed

DHAKA: A new bridge in southern Bangladesh called Hezbollah after the Lebanese group fighting Israel in a month-long war has been renamed, a highway official said on Tuesday.

A junior minister, who named the bridge earlier this month to honour the party, has ordered the highways department drop the name, the official said.

"We have now changed its name to Hazrat Omar Faruq bridge," said Mofizul Islam, an executive engineer with the roads and highways department which constructed the bridge.

Hazrat Omar Faruq was a Muslim leader who ruled the Islamic empire after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.

"We changed the name after receiving an order from (communications minister) Salahuddin Ahmed." He did not give any reasons for the order.

Ahmed named the bridge crossing the Batakhali river 300 kilometres (180 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka on August 7.

The junior minister and member of parliament for the district, said he had named it Hezbollah because of "our love for the Lebanese resistance group."

Hezbollah -- or Party of God -- was formed after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Thirty-four days of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah ended after a UN resolution this month with at least 1,287 people dead in Lebanon, nearly all of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.