U.N. Commander: Won't Disarm Hezbollah
By HENRY MEYER, Associated Press Writer UPDATED 4 HOURS 57 MINUTES AGO <http://www.comcast.net/data/news/photoshow/html/int_news/479263.html> BEIRUT, Lebanon - The French general commanding U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon said Monday his troops would not intervene to disarm Hezbollah, even as French President Jacques Chirac said the militant group should not keep a military wing. Maj. Gen. Alain Pelligrini told reporters the main task of his U.N. force is to ensure southern Lebanon cannot be used as a base for attacks on Israel. "The disarmament of Hezbollah is not the business of UNIFIL. This is a strictly Lebanese affair, which should be resolved at a national level," he said. Pelligrini's assessment underscored the constraints facing the beefed-up U.N. mission despite a tougher mandate and far greater manpower. It came as French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie visited hundreds of her country's soldiers about to deploy to southern Lebanon, where they will join the U.N. force that is to maintain the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. In Paris, Chirac said it was important for the Lebanese government to assert control over its entire territory. "It is totally normal there be a wing that expresses politically what the Hezbollah think .... What is questionable, is to express this by force, by armed militias," the French leader said in an interview on Europe-1 radio. U.N. peacekeepers for the first time began checking security measures Monday on Lebanon's border with Syria, part of efforts to help the Lebanese army in monitoring sea and land borders to prevent arms shipments to Hezbollah. The bulk of the 15,000-strong U.N. force is deploying in the south, and France _ contributing the second-largest contingent of 2,000 soldiers _ will command it until early next year, when Italy is to take over. The U.N. cease-fire resolution that ended the 34-day war Aug. 14 stipulated Hezbollah eventually be disarmed, and Chirac said he wanted to see the resolution implemented "without reservations." But in practice, neither the Lebanese army nor U.N. soldiers want to provoke a confrontation with the well-trained guerrillas in their southern heartland. Along with the U.N. troops, who currently number 5,000, Lebanon's army is deploying 15,000 soldiers in the southern area that borders Israel. "Our mission is to have a zone between the Blue Line and the Litani (River) where there is no illegal army and from which you cannot launch hostile acts," Pelligrini said, referring to the area between the U.N.-demarcated border with Israel and the river. Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in an interview last week that Israel's monthlong offensive had failed to dismantle Hezbollah and boasted that his armed guerrillas were still in the towns and villages near the Israeli border. Hezbollah fighters, who have controlled parts of southern Lebanon for years, are believed to be lying low and blending in with the local population _ as they did before the war. The weak central government in Lebanon has vowed to re-establish its authority over the Hezbollah stronghold in the south. But Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has also made clear the Lebanese troops would not actively hunt for hidden Hezbollah arsenals. Alliot-Marie told the French soldiers at a temporary base housing them in Beirut that they would be carrying out a mission "whose difficulties and risks I am aware of." But she said their robust mandate and heavy armor, which includes Leclerc tanks, sophisticated Cobra radar systems and 155 mm howitzers, would deter aggression. "To avoid clashes sometimes you have to dissuade (the other side) by demonstrating you are stronger," the minister said. Some 900 French soldiers who have been staying in Beirut are to begin moving Tuesday to a base in Deir Kifa, east of the port of Tyre. The French deployment to southern Lebanon will take about a week; the first convoy will consist of 150 soldiers and four tanks. China, meanwhile, said it will increase its peacekeeping force in Lebanon to 1,000. More than 1,000 people died in the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, most of them Lebanese civilians. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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