The once unthinkable disarmament of Hezbollah could finally be within reach, as the United States pushes Lebanon to act and applies pressure to the group's backer Iran over its nuclear programme, analysts said.

Hezbollah was left badly weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel, beginning with the group's campaign of rocket fire at its arch-foe in support of ally Hamas, and culminating in a major Israeli bombing campaign and ground incursion into Lebanon.

In the months after the war, which devastated parts of the country and killed many of the movement's top leaders, Lebanon elected a president and formed a government after a more than two-year vacuum as the balance of power shifted.

The war "clearly changed the situation on ground in Lebanon", said David Wood from the International Crisis Group.

"It's conceivable to think that Hezbollah could move towards disarmament and potentially even participate in that process willingly," Wood told AFP.

Hezbollah was the only group that refused to disarm after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Bolstered by an arsenal once considered more powerful than that of the Lebanese army, it long presented itself as the country's best line of defence against Israeli aggression.

But both its stockpiles and its senior leadership were sapped by the conflict, with longtime leader Hassan........

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