Friday, July 28, 2006

UN to move UNTSO from border

The Jerusalem Post reports the UN has decided to act – kind of:
The United Nations has decided to remove 50 unarmed observers from their posts along the Israeli-Lebanese border, moving them in with the peacekeeping force in the area, a spokesman said Friday. The decision came after one of the posts of the observer force, known as UNTSO, was destroyed by an Israeli air strike earlier this week, killing four.

"These are unarmed people and this is for their protection," said Milos Struger, a spokesman for UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force whose 2,000 members have light weapons for self-defense. UNTSO has about 50 observers in four posts along the border, two of which have already been abandoned - the one that was destroyed at Khiam and a second near the village of Maroun al-Ras, which was abandoned after one of the observers was seriously wounded by Hizbullah gunfire on July 23, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UNIFIL peacekeepers. Staff were being removed from the remaining two posts to be placed at UNIFIL posts along the border, Struger said. He would not say whether the move had been completed.

I suppose this is a start. Now what about the 2,000 UNIFIL "peacekeepers"?

No comments: