Pat Dollard

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Naharnet, Lebanon – The call by al-Qaida’s Ayman al-Zawahiri for Sunni militants in Lebanon to attack U.N. peacekeepers is a “bad omen” for the country and a dangerous threat to its future, Sports and Youth Minister Ahmed Fatfat said.
Al-Zawahiri’s comments were “very dangerous and a bad omen for the Lebanese,” Fatfat told Al Arabiya television channel.

“In any country where al-Zawahiri and al-Qaida settle, destruction prevails as we witnessed in a large number of countries,” he added.

Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy al-Zawahri on Tuesday called on militants in an audiotape “to expel the invading Crusaders who pretend to be peacekeeping forces in Lebanon and not to accept resolution 1701.”

Al-Zawahiri was referring to the U.N. resolution that ended the war between Israel and Hizbullah in the summer of 2006. A 13,500-strong U.N. force, known as UNIFIL, monitors the truce in southern Lebanon.

“The road is long but they have to break the siege imposed on them and to shove their way to Palestine,” al-Zawahiri said, referring to militants in Lebanon.

UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane said extremists have made similar threats in the past but indicated the peacekeeping force has comprehensive security measures in place.

“We take all such threats seriously because the security and safety of U.N. personnel is paramount,” she said.

There have been several attacks on U.N. troops in Lebanon in recent years.

Six Spanish peacekeepers were killed in a car bombing in south Lebanon last June. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack or another one that followed in July. But in a July videotape, al-Zawahiri blessed the attack against the Spanish contingent.

In January, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.N. vehicle traveling along a coastal highway south of Beirut, lightly wounding two peacekeepers.

The U.S. has strongly urged Americans to avoid traveling to Lebanon.