Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday his group and Israel have begun holding indirect negotiations over a prisoner exchange involving captured Israel Defense Forces soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

Talks between Israel and Hezbollah are being conducted through a mediator appointed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, he said. "I would like to assure all those interested in this file that there are serious negotiations that are continuing," Nasrallah told Hezbollah's television station in an interview.

"The negotiations are ongoing and we have reached the stage of exchanging ideas, or more accurately, exchanging terms," the Hezbollah leader added.

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It was the first indication given by Nasrallah regarding active talks to secure the prisoners' release. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Nasrallah refused to go into details or speculate how long the negotiations would last, but the group is believed to be pushing to exchange the two Israel Defense Forces soldiers it captured in July for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.

Nasrallah also said during the interview that UN forces in Lebanon were not aiming to disarm the guerilla group, adding that they would not be able to even if it was their goal.

"The assembly of UNIFIL forces does not hint to anything that should inspire fear. This is not an ensemble with a goal of disarming us, nor would they be able to do so," he said, in his first appearance since speaking at "victory" rally in south Beirut last month.

Nasrallah said the countries that had sent forces to Lebanon had established contact with the Hezbollah before deciding to deploy their troops. "We told them that we have no problem with them coming to help the [Lebanese] army," he said.

The Hezbollah leader also said that Israel had been defeated in the recent war, and would have to "think a thousand times" before starting another war in Lebanon. He said the guerilla group had well prepared itself over the last six years for a war of seige with Israel. "We had more than 33,000 missiles," he said, adding, "and what we had is still in our possession.

Nasrallah also said that the U.S. has failed in Iraq and that animosity in the Arab world against Washington should not be blamed on Islamic extremism.

"Afghanistan is a failure ... In Iraq, there is clear failure on the security, military and political levels ... Who shoulders responsibility? It's the American administration and the occupation forces in control of the situation," Nasrallah said in a taped interview on Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar.

He said America's plans in the Middle East face "failure, frustration and a state of collapse," and predicted the U.S. would be forced to leave
the region in the future - just like it left Vietnam after the war there three decades ago.

The U.S. has "no future" in the region, Nasrallah said. "They will leave the Mideast, Arab and Islamic worlds just as they left Vietnam, and I advise those who are counting on them to draw conclusion from the Vietnam
experience."

This would happen "within years, not months," he added.