Friday, August 21, 2009

Hezbollah Readies for War as UN Peacekeepers Can Only Observe

And why can't they do a thing? Because security council refused to give them the power to do so at end of last war. Just goes to show that UN is not at all interested in sustainable cease fires nor peace - just to obstruct Israel and rescue its enemies who were at their last breath.

Found it in the financial website, Bloomberg:
Hezbollah Readies for War as UN Peacekeepers Can Only Observe
In a Lebanese village 10 miles west of the Israeli border, black-capped Hezbollah militiamen stand guard in front of a suspected weapons cache.

Even though they are unarmed, their presence deters United Nations peacekeepers from approaching the house in Khirbet Silim, preventing the UN troops from fulfilling their mission, which is to stop Hezbollah from rearming.

“The UN can’t just come around here and go into people’s houses,” said Rassan Salim, a municipal official in the village and a Hezbollah militia member. “Our weapons are to defend Lebanon.”

Hezbollah’s efforts to stockpile arms became obvious on July 14 when weapons hidden in a house in the village blew up, according to officials from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. Four days later, peacekeepers looking for arms tried to raid the house the militiamen now guard, about a kilometer from the one that exploded. Villagers stoned the soldiers, injuring 14, and blocked the incursion.

Hezbollah, which has the backing of Iran and Syria, is rebuilding its force in the south, undaunted by its loss in Lebanon’s June elections, in which a pro-U.S. coalition won a parliamentary majority. The peacekeepers’ stay in south Lebanon expires on Aug. 31 and the UN Security Council must decide whether to extend it without change or authorize them to impose the weapons ban by force even without the support of the Lebanese army.

The 12,000 UN soldiers were sent to Lebanon after a 2006 war with Israel that began when Hezbollah, which the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist organization, captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Free of Hezbollah

After the fighting ended, the Security Council passed a resolution prohibiting “weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state.” The peacekeepers were deployed to keep south Lebanon free of Hezbollah’s militia and arms, a role they have to perform with the cooperation of the Lebanese army.

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