Israel Matzav

Pits full of IED's found on Lebanese side of border

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, sent a letter to the UN Security Council on Thursday night complaining of pits full of IED's that were discovered on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel at the end of December.

1. At 20:00 hours on December 26, 2009, a force belonging to UNIFIL’s Spanish brigade discerned the movement of suspicious individuals in an open area of Mazraat Sarda, south of the Shi’ite village of Al-Khiyam in the eastern sector of south Lebanon (about 1 kilometer, of 6/10 of a mile, from the Israeli border). The UNIFIL spokesperson reported that five men were seen fleeing the scene.

2. Searches conducted by UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese army, which also arrived at the scene, revealed a number of explosive pits containing dozens of IEDs of various types, weighing a total of about 300 kilograms, or 660 lbs. An initial investigation showed that they were not improvised devices but rather advanced, standard, industrially mass-produced bombs (in our assessment, manufactured in Iran or Syria). They were transferred to the Lebanese army by UNIFIL. Other IEDs may still be in place. A comparison of the IEDs found to those used by Hezbollah in the past against the IDF and other indications make it likely that Hezbollah was responsible for placing them near the Israeli border this time.

3. Hezbollah’s digging pits and filling them with explosives as part of its combat concept is familiar from the second Lebanon war. To that end Hezbollah dug a series of such pits in south Lebanon and located hundreds of kilograms of explosives in each. The pits were hidden underground at the sides of the main roads into Lebanon and at central junctions. A document seized during the second Lebanon war in the village of Kafr Killa detailed the explosive pit systems along the various roads, including the region of the region of the Sarda-Al-Khiyam-Burj al-Mlouk junction, where explosive pits were recently uncovered by UNIFIL.1

Read the whole thing.

Hezbullah continues to violate UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was totally predictable when that resolution was adopted. Hezbullah continues to prepare for another war with Israel. The UN continues to do nothing. As I noted in my post in December, these explosives were turned over to the Lebanese army, which is full of Hezbullah and its sympathizers.

When will the next war in Lebanon happen? Probably in the not-too-distant future.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:54 AM