High Noon on the Golan Heights: IDF troops 400 meters from Nusra Front terrorists on the Golan
UN officials shuttled along the rocky frontier between Syria and the Golan Heights on Friday, trying to establish the whereabouts of 43 United Nations peacekeepers seized by Al-Qaida-linked militants inside Syria.Read the whole thing.
Israeli forces took up positions at Quneitra, a fortified crossing between Syria and the Golan, barely 400 meters from Nusra Front militants, who attacked a UN base on the Syrian side of the border on Wednesday and seized the 43 Fijians.
About 80 UN soldiers from the Philippines, all of whom serve with UNDOF, a UN force that has monitored the disengagement zone between Israel and Syria since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, remain locked down in two camps on the Syrian side of the frontier, military officers in the Philippines said.
Officials from UNDOF, which has about 1,200 peacekeepers from six countries operating in the zone, declined to comment as they left one of their compounds on Friday.
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It is the third time in two years that UNDOF troops have been seized on the Syrian side of the demarcation zone, a measure of the instability since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began. Until then, UNDOF had been one of the quietest UN peacekeeping posts anywhere in the world.
In both previous cases those seized were released within days, UN officials said. But the situation appears to be more precarious this time. A militant close to the Nusra Front said the Fijians had been taken because they had been providing medical treatment to wounded soldiers from Assad's army.
Labels: Golan Heights, IDF, Nusra Front, Syrian uprising, UNDOF
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:16 PM
1 Comments:
from a local news here in the Philippines, the UNDOF Philippine contingent was demanded by the Syrian rebels to surrender their weapons, but seeing what happened to the Fijian troops, they decided to hold their position and their weapons and stood ready to defend their post if ever the threat will escalate. As of this hour the report is there is a standoff, between the rebels and the UNDOF Phil contingent.
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