Posted on 09/25/2006 10:31:08 AM PDT by SmithL
DEIR KIFA, Lebanon -- U.N. troops sent to keep the peace in southern Lebanon are taking strong defensive measures against possible suicide attacks — worried because al-Qaida has warned they are considered enemies of Islam.
The peacekeepers are putting up checkpoints and picking remote spots for their bases. French soldiers, for instance, plan to set up one of their main bases in Baraachit, on a plateau that is more than 2,600 feet high.
France is taking no chances in light of an earlier aborted peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. It pulled out of that operation after a suicide truck bombing in Beirut killed 58 French soldiers on Oct. 23, 1983 — the same day a similar attack killed 241 U.S. Marines.
"For us, the protection of the force is the top priority because it could be a target for an attack by al-Qaida or another group," French Col. Olivier de Cevins said at his temporary headquarters near Deir Kifa, a town 12 miles from the Israeli border.
U.N. troops face a difficult mission in guarding against a resumption of the Israel-Hezbollah war and helping the Lebanese army re-establish government control in the south, a longtime stronghold of Hezbollah's militant Shiite Muslims.
Yet despite tensions as Hezbollah faces U.N. restrictions on arms shipments, and even though Hezbollah was blamed for the 1983 attacks, many European peacekeepers do not see that group as the primary threat.
"I am more concerned about a group that is foreign to the Lebanese, such as al-Qaida, than about Hezbollah," the head of the Spanish military contingent, Col. Luis Melendez, said in an interview last week with the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I really, REALLY dislike the UN.
Show me a 2,600 foot high plateau, and I'll show you a 2,610 foot ladder.
"al-Qaida has warned they are considered enemies of Islam."
Not as far as I can tell.
Talk about truly dying for nothing....
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