WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States will make a new effort at the United Nations this month to tighten the squeeze on Syria and to help Lebanon rebuild politically, the Washington Post reported Friday.

    The US initiative, backed by France, comes as Lebanon filed preliminary criminal charges Thursday against four pro-Syrian generals in the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

    The plan's two steps are part of parallel international effortsto hold the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad to accountfor its current and past meddling in Lebanon, and are bolstered asthe UN-led investigation into the Feb. 14 assassination narrows its focus on Syria's allies and agents in Lebanon.

    The goal is to "juxtapose" greater pressure on Syria with international help for Lebanon as it works to regain sovereignty, particularly because the Syrians have not pulled out all of their intelligence agents, said a senior US government official.

    US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held an unpublicized meeting Tuesday at the White House with the UN envoy for Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larsen, French national security adviser Maurice Gourdault-Montagne and US national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley to discuss Lebanon and Syria, according to unidentified US officials and European diplomatic sources.

    The French and UN envoys flew in specifically for the meeting, the Washington Post said.

    Rice is now planning to host a meeting with European and MiddleEast allies to discuss new joint efforts when she attends the opening of the UN General Assembly in two weeks.

    Deliberately excluded will be Assad, who will be visiting the United Nations for the first time as head of state, US officials said.

    "We are creating a context that will have a supportive positionfor Lebanon and for Syria not to be comfortable," the newspaper quoted an unidentified senior US government official as saying.

    US-Syrian ties have deteriorated dramatically since the start of the US-led war in Iraq in 2003, mainly over the US accusation that Damascus was not stopping Islamist militants from flowing into Iraq to fuel insurgency.

    In addition, Washington also claimed that Damascus has not pulled out all of its intelligence agents from Lebanon

    On April 26, Syria informed the United Nations that it had completed the withdrawal of its forces from Lebanon on Tuesday in line with Security Council Resolution 1559. Enditem