Israel Matzav

Roadside bomb in Lebanon hits UNIFIL

Well, this ought to send them back to their cocoons. A roadside bomb in Lebanon wounded six UNIFIL 'peacekeepers' on Friday.

A roadside bomb struck a United Nations convoy near a southern Lebanese port on Friday, wounding six Italian peacekeepers and a Lebanese passer-by in the first attack on the force in more than three years, Lebanese and Italian officials said.

They said the blast was caused by a homemade bomb placed behind a low concrete barrier lining the highway. The blast damaged two of the four cars in the convoy as it traveled south on the main highway in Sidon. The police said that the bomb, which left a crater in the road, contained up to 25 pounds of explosive material.

...

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the United Nations forces, a longtime presence in southern Lebanon that was reinforced after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement.

And then come the excuses... and of course they indirectly blame Israel.

But Lebanon’s weak government, ineffective military and combustible mix of political and sectarian forces with foreign paymasters has often made it an arena for geopolitical vendettas. Many in Lebanon have been bracing for possible strife amid a 10-week uprising in neighboring Syria. There, international pressure has mounted on President Bashar al-Assad to institute democratic changes.

Mr. La Russa, the defense minister, said that Italian officials “were not too surprised by this terrorist action” given the situation in Lebanon. The country has been without a government since January, when Hezbollah ministers and their allies walked out of the cabinet.

Anger has also risen in the Palestinian camps over the United Nations force’s perceived lack of intervention in preventing Israeli forces from firing on crowds who headed to the Israeli border earlier this month to commemorate the Nakba, or catastrophe, a day that marks for Palestinians the creation of Israel in 1948. Lebanese officials said that Israeli troops killed 10 people on the Lebanese side of the border.

“The incident intersects with what’s happening in the region,” said Rafic Nasrallah, the head of the International Center for Media and Studies in Beirut.

This ought to make them so much more effective. Next time they'll certainly fire on the IDF.

What could go wrong?

UPDATE 11:21 AM (BOSTON TIME)

Well what a shock. Italy wants to cut its troops in UNIFIL by half (Hat Tip: Challah Hu Akbar via Twitter).

Labels: Hezbullah, UN Security Council Resolution 1701, UNIFIL

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:44 PM