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Lebanon

The Lebanese government shows resolve, willingness to fight vs. Palestinian terrorists.

Excellent local roundups, updates, vid at Blacksmiths of Lebanon. 

Your essential Gateway here.

Michael Totten irregularly posting on it but worth a look, and don’t miss his excellent bio on French FM Kouchner while you’re there.

Captains Quarters wants to know where the UN is: “Nahr el-Bared is a UN refugee camp, and they’re supposed to keep the inhabitants disarmed.”

Snapped Shot with a UN sighting. 

Topics: GWOT, lebanon

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:50 am on Tuesday, May 22, 2007

4 Responses to “Lebanon”

1. Blacksmith Jade Says:
   May 22nd, 2007 at 10:14 am

   Hey Jules,
   With respect to the UN, the 12,000 UNIFIL troops are deployed exclusively south of the Litani river in southern Lebanon. That is where their mandate allows them operate under 1701. What there is plenty of in the North are UN naval units.

   However, reports from inside the camp indicated yesterday that reinforcements and supplies were able to reach the terrorist group in the camp Sunday night via fishing boats which came in from Syria, along the coast. The reason the UN vessels could not intercept these boats is that throughout the negotiations over the UN naval vessels’ mandate, Hizballah forced the government to demand that they only be allowed to operate in international waters off the coast of Lebanon, and not within Lebanese waters. given the proximity of the Syrian coast to the Lebanese coast, their presence was rendered pretty much useless.

   Finally, the ‘phenomenon’ we are witnessing today falls under the purview of UNSC Resolution 1559 (and not 1701) which specifically called for the disarming of all armed groups in Lebanon, and specifically those in the Palestinian camp. Progress was being made to that effect before Hizballah sabotaged the national dialogues (the mechanism through which the progress was being made) by launching the July 2006 War. In doing so, it unilaterally drove the country to war, put an end to all discussion of its disarmamanet (the same national dialogues were working on a mechanism through which Hizballah would hand its weapons to the Army) and any other disarmament of pro-Syrian radical groups. In the aftermath of the war, the country and the government now had to contend with the vast destruction the country’s infrastructure experienced, a concerted a campaign by Syria’s allies to topple the government through riots and bullying tactics, and a contined series of assassinations against political figures and regular Lebanese.

2. Jules Crittenden Says:
   May 22nd, 2007 at 10:20 am

   Thanks, Jade, for your work on this.

3. snapped shot Says:
   May 22nd, 2007 at 10:42 am

   Jules–

   I think I might have found where the UN is in all of this. Exactly where we expected them to be: Trying to support the terrorists er, I mean supplying the “refugees.”

4. Blacksmith Jade Says:
   May 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm

   The Nahr el Bared refugee camp is home to about 30,000 displaced Palestinians who, for the most part, have nothing to do with the fighting we are witnessing today. The group the army is confronting infiltrated the country from Syria some 6 months ago and is made up of hardly any Palestinians.

   For more on where these radicals came from check this peice: http://blacksmithsoflebanon.blogspot.com/2006/11/200-militants-report-to-assassinate.html

   Unfortunately for the residents of the camp, when earlier attempts at evacuating them were commenced, the Syrian-sponsored fundamentalist terrorists known as Fatah al Islam fired on the Red Cross convoys and those who tried to run out of the camp.

   Humanitarian organisations affiliated with the UN have been attempting to send food and water to those residents of the camp effectively taken hostage.

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