A Lebanese military court on Thursday indicted seven people for their alleged involvement in a December attack on a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy that resulted in the death of an Irish ‘blue helmet’.
Judicial sources quoted by the Lebanese daily ‘L’Orient le Jour’ have detailed that a total of seven projectiles pierced the UNIFIL vehicle, attacked in the surroundings of the locality of Al Aqbiya when it was heading to the capital Beirut.
The Shiite militia-party Hezbollah, which controls these areas in the south of the country, has denied any role in the incident, although sources quoted by this newspaper said that two members of the group were allegedly involved in the attack. Hezbollah handed over a suspect to Lebanese authorities on 25 December.
Lebanon’s acting Prime Minister Nayib Mikati has vowed to «punish» those responsible for the attack. «The atmosphere in which international soldiers are working is good and investigations into the death of the Irish soldier are continuing,» he said in mid-December.
UNIFIL was deployed in the country in 1978 and restored after the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which lasted just over a month and resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 people in Lebanon – mostly civilians – and 160 Israelis – mostly soldiers – as well as significant material damage in the Arab country.
Resolution 1701 calls for an end to the conflict, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon and the deployment in the south of the country of Lebanese forces and of UNIFIL itself. It also calls for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, which includes Hezbollah, and that there be no armed forces other than those of UNIFIL and Lebanon south of the Litani River, which includes both Israel and the Lebanese militia-party.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
