Italian Peacekeepers Injured in Lebanon Bombing

[High_Gravity]

Italian Peacekeepers Injured in Lebanon Bombing

BEIRUT — A roadside bomb targeted a United Nations convoy near a southern Lebanese port Friday, wounding several Italian peacekeepers and a Lebanese passerby in the first attack on the force in more than three years, Lebanese officials said.

Italian defense officials said six of the country’s peacekeepers had been injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the United Nations forces, a longtime presence in southern Lebanon that was reinforced after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement.

But Lebanon’s weak government, ineffective military and combustible mix of political and sectarian forces with foreign paymasters, has often made it an arena for geopolitical vendettas. Many in Lebanon have been bracing for possible strife amid a nine-week uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that has led to increasing international pressure on him to institute democratic changes.

The convoy was struck near Sidon, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city outside the control of Hezbollah. Officials there said four vehicles were heading from Beirut, the capital, to Naqoura, near the border with Lebanon and Israel. The bomb detonated beyond a Lebanese army checkpoint on a highway that runs along the Mediterranean.

The last attack on United Nations forces in Lebanon was in January 2008, when a roadside bomb struck United Nations vehicles traveling along the same road south of Beirut, lightly wounding two peacekeepers. The deadliest attack in recent years was in 2007, when six peacekeepers were killed by a bomb that hit their armored personnel carriers near the fortified Israeli border.

The United Nations peacekeeping force, known here by its acronym UNIFIL, was first deployed to southern Lebanon in 1978 after an Israeli invasion. The force now employees more than 12,000 military personnel under the command of a Spanish general. Italy has 2,500 soldiers in Lebanon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/world/middleeast/28lebanon.html?ref=middleeast

 

[waltky]

Granny says purt soon the whole region gonna be aflame like it says inna Bible...

Clashes in Lebanon feed fear of Syria spillover
May 23,`13 -- Lebanese supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad fired heavy machine guns and lobbed mortar shells at each other Thursday in some of the worst fighting in the port city of Tripoli in years.

The battles raised the five-day death toll to 16 and fed fears of the Syrian civil war spreading to Lebanon and other neighboring countries. The violence also added to the urgency to U.S.-Russian efforts to bring both sides of the Syrian conflict to a peace conference in Geneva. Members of the Syrian opposition began three day meetings in Istanbul to hash out a unified position on whether to attend, while maintaining that Assad's departure from power should be the goals of the negotiations.

Lebanon has been on edge since the uprising in Syria began in March 2011. The country, which is still struggling to recover from its own 15-year civil war, is sharply divided along sectarian lines and into pro and anti-Assad camps. The overt involvement by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite militant group alongside Assad's regime has sparked outrage among many Sunnis in Lebanon who identify with the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Assad.

Deadly sectarian street fighting has erupted on several occasions, mostly in Tripoli, Lebanon's largest city and a hotbed for Sunni Islamists. This week's fighting there has been linked to a Syrian regime offensive against the rebel-held city of Qusair in western Syria that has included Hezbollah fighters supporting Syrian troops against the rebels. Tripoli is overwhelmingly Sunni but has a tiny community of Alawites, members of Assad's minority sect, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Residents reported more than six hours of fighting that began late Wednesday and continued through Thursday morning. Mortar shells were used for the first time. Ambulances rushed back and forth, transporting casualties to hospitals as officials used mosque loudspeakers to urge citizens to take shelter in basements. Schools and many businesses were shuttered Thursday as sporadic fighting continued. Five people were killed, pushing the overall death toll to 16 since fighting began Sunday, with 200 people wounded, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations. "It was a frightful night that instilled terror in the heart of every resident of Tripoli," said Shada Dabliz, a 40-year-old peace activist in the city. "Tripoli is part of Lebanon, where is the state? Why doesn't the government do anything?"

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[Trajan]

the Russians don't want to do a thing but see Assad win, which he just may.....