• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

More Lebanese troops deploy on Syrian border

Posted on: Wednesday, 23 August 2006, 03:11 CDT

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese army troops beefed up their deployment on the Syrian border on Wednesday as European Union nations debated joining a U.N. force to take over south Lebanese flashpoints from Israeli troops and Hizbollah fighters.

Trying to bolster a U.N. truce that halted Israel's 34-day war with Hizbollah, more Lebanese troops moved into border posts in the south-eastern Bekaa Valley, security sources said.

The army has been tightening its grip on the border in response to a Security Council resolution that demanded an end to arms supplies to Hizbollah, whose main allies are Syria and Iran, as part of arrangements to restore peace in Lebanon.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said one of the main tasks for a strengthened U.N. force would be to enforce the arms embargo.

He shrugged off a warning by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday that deploying foreign troops on the Syrian-Lebanese border would be a hostile act.

"The reinforced UNIFIL will have two major tasks," Douste-Blazy told France 2 television. "On the one hand it will be there to enable the Lebanese army to deploy (to the south) and on the other hand it will be there to safeguard the arms embargo at all the borders. I repeat, at all the borders."

Israel has called on U.N. troops to police Lebanese-Syrian border crossings to prevent weapons reaching Hizbollah, citing this as a reason for not fully lifting an air and sea blockade it imposed on Lebanon when the conflict erupted.

The United Nations is trying to assemble a force of 15,000 troops, known as UNIFIL, to monitor the truce in Lebanon.

U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said on Tuesday it could take three months to fill the postwar "security vacuum" and said even unintended incidents could reignite fighting.

The Lebanese army has already deployed about 2,000 troops on the Syrian border and Roed-Larsen said government officials had indicated they would seek U.N. help in monitoring the crossings.

France has sent only 200 troops, instead of an expected 2,000 or more, to bolster UNIFIL but Douste-Blazy indicated that more could follow once the terms of the mission are set.

EU COMMITMENT IN DOUBT

Israel has refused to withdraw fully from the south until more UNIFIL troops arrive to back up the 15,000 Lebanese troops who have begun moving into Hizbollah strongholds in the region.

Doubts remain over how substantial a contingent the European Union will provide for the U.N. force.

Italy will press envoys from fellow EU states in Brussels on Wednesday to back up its pledge of troops with their own soldiers, two days before a meeting of EU foreign ministers that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is due to attend.

Rome has said it could send up to 3,000 troops out of a European contingent of anything up to 9,000. France and other EU nations have hesitated to make firm commitments, with some saying they want a clearer definition of the mission.

The United Nations has circulated new rules of engagement for U.N. troops in Lebanon, which permit soldiers to shoot in self-defense, use force to protect civilians and resist armed attempts to interfere with their duties, a U.N. document says.

Nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon and 157 Israelis were killed during the war that erupted after Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

Amnesty International accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians and said it might have committed war crimes.

Not only were food shops purposely destroyed by shelling and air attacks, it said, but aid convoys were deliberately blocked, and hospitals and public utilities like water and power plants put out of action to force people to flee.

"The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy rather than collateral damage," the rights group said.

Israel says it did not target civilians and had warned non-combatants to leave south Lebanon. It also accuses Hizbollah of launching rockets from civilian areas.

Amnesty called for an independent U.N. inquiry into breaches of international humanitarian law it says both sides committed.

An Israeli soldier was killed and three were wounded when an anti-tank mine exploded in south Lebanon on Wednesday, Dubai-based Al Arabiya television said. It gave no details.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category