UN Force Not Stopping Syrian Arms To Hezbollah
Agencies:
The US ambassador to Lebanon said on Friday that there was clear evidence the Shiite terror organization Hizbullah was still smuggling weapons across the Syrian border, in violation of UN resolutions, and despite the UN’s security forces in Lebanon.
“We find the evidence to be strong that arms smuggling is continuing across the Syrian-Lebanese border,” Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman told AFP, without giving any specific details.
“We are concerned by the reports and by the public statements by Hizbullah that Hizbullah has actively rearmed.”
He added: “In our view this poses one of the biggest dangers to Lebanon and it is a violation of the spirit and the letter of a number of Security Council resolutions.”
The Lebanese group, which is backed by Syria and Iran, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States. It had one minister in the Lebanese government until he and five other pro-Syrian ministers resigned last November.
Hizbullah, which claimed its resistance against Israel forced the Jewish state’s 2000 withdrawal from south Lebanon, seized two Israeli soldiers in July 2006, sparking last year’s devastating 34-day war with Israel.
This led subsequently to the reinforcement of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the deployment of the Lebanese army along the tense border zone with Israel for the first time in decades.
The group, however, was not disarmed and recently said it still had weapons that could reach Israel.
Feltman said there were several initiatives under discussion with the Lebanese government on how to put a stop to weapons smuggling.
Saying that the international community would respond favourably to any Lebanese government request to help in border security, Feltman said “there are several initiatives under discussion with the government about how best to prevent smuggling, most importantly arms smugglings.”
He also rejected arguments that controlling Lebanon’s border with Syria would amount to interfering in the country’s sovereignty.
“Controlling borders is an assertion of sovereignty,” he maintained.
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Did anyone actually believe that they would?
September 14th, 2007 at 11:52 am“The US ambassador to Lebanon said on Friday that there was clear evidence the Shiite terror organization Hizbullah was still smuggling weapons across the Syrian border, in violation of UN resolutions, and despite the UN’s security forces in Lebanon.”
Imagine that!!
OK, so what is Lebanon doing to stop the flow? Instead of whining, send your own troops over there and have them deal with it. Maybe they just simply prefer to have the terrs start some more shit with Israel and have Israel bombard the living hell out of their countryside again…
September 14th, 2007 at 12:11 pmwith resolution 1701 Unifil is ment to make the “cease fire” be respected between the belligerents and let the lebanese army to recover southern Lebanon and disarm the milicians HZB ; with this 1701, they can’t make more pressure ; the chapter VII would have been necessited ; I agree, UN is not useful there as far as empeching the arms traffic is not in their duty
though, they are a great help for medical cares and reconstruction
Lebanese army had a few victories lately, so let’s be optimist, and help this army to get better material
September 14th, 2007 at 12:26 pmThe UN. What a useless POS they are. I got a better agency than the UN for the job? How about Executive Outcomes?
September 14th, 2007 at 12:43 pmAt least them boys don’t run from a fight or stand there like little women and do nothing.
The UN doesn’t stop anything other than progress. All they want to do is have US troops to do the dirty work and die under UN control, which is fine with the Dems, because that happens under socialist control!
We need to quit funding 80% of the UN budget, it gets used against us in the end, and makes our enemies wealthy.
The only way to stop the arms smuggling there is the same as stopping AQ in Iraq and elsewhere, kill the bastards, end of statement.
September 14th, 2007 at 1:19 pmWe need to kick the useless UN out of America and let the swines hold their “let’s punish the USA” meetings elsewhere, and then NOT PARTICIPATE. The UN is as useless as the ACLU.
September 14th, 2007 at 5:05 pmHarry Truman said that the UN was created to bring peace and stability to the World. It’s done neither. The fucking emperor has no fucking teeth anymore. U Thant was the last decent UN Chief. The rest of them have been pussies. And without the US, the UN Blue Helmets might as well paint targets on their backs and issue each unit a white flag with a piss yellow streak down the middle of it.
Hizbollah will cut through their lines like a hot knife through butter when the war starts again. Feckless bastards.
September 14th, 2007 at 6:55 pmDanny, you forgot that they have the right to defend themselves if they are attacked, (at leat the Frenchs will do, that’s what they said ; they did it in Ivory-coast and in Chad without the permission of our government) it is a paragraph that France had hard time to make adding in the resolution
September 15th, 2007 at 1:09 am