Lebanese army posted on Israel border for first time in decades
Afp, Naqura
Lebanese soldiers backed by UN peacekeepers deployed yesterday for the first time in decades at posts on the volatile border with Israel, as the Hezbollah chief boasted his Shia guerrillas were stronger than ever. After more Israeli troops withdrew from the region following the Jewish state's devastating July-August war with Hezbollah, around 400 Lebanese soldiers supported by tanks were deployed at five points on the border's western sector, an army spokesman said. Two of the posts at Ras Naqura on the Mediterranean and Labbuneh, three kilometres (two miles) inland, set up with the support of a Ghanaian armoured unit of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), stand 100 metres (yards) from Israeli troops. The spokesman said the Israeli army in the western sector was left holding on to only a single post in Marwahin, some 30km east of Naqura. Unifil commander Major General Alain Pelligrini said Friday that Israeli forces withdrew from more positions on the "Blue Line" demarcating the border and should have pulled out completely by the end of this month. Israel announced last Wednesday it was delaying the completion of its promised withdrawal until after the Jewish New Year holidays which end on Sunday evening. Also on Saturday, a Lebanese naval boat berthed in Naqura harbour to patrol the waters between the southern port town of Tyre and Naqura, where Unifil has its headquarters, the state news agency ANI reported. Lebanese soldiers had not been deployed for four decades along the border with Israel, having been absent since 1968 when Palestinian guerrillas held sway and southern Lebanon was considered "Fatahland", taking its name from the mainstream Palestine Liberation Organisation faction. Hezbollah took control in 2000 after the end of more than two decades of occupation by the Israeli army. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which came into force on August 14 established a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah following their 34-day war in which more than 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon alone. In Beirut, meanwhile, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's defiant speech Friday before hundreds of thousands of supporters at a "victory" rally drew mixed reviews in Beirut newspapers, after he rejected UN demands to disarm his fighters.
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