UN peacekeepers in Lebanon: now the targets of militant Islamists – By Markus Bickel

With six Spanish UNIFIL troops killed in a car bomb explosion in Lebanon at the end of June, a predominantly European stabilization force has become the target of the militants for the first time. Due to the presence of militias and armed groups in the country, the risk of more attacks remains.

The sound of helicopter rotor blades echoes relentlessly over the coast. It is barely 19 miles from the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in Naqoura, where these aircraft are based, to the northern border of their operational area along the Litani River.

A year ago, the small Mediterranean towns of Mansouri, Ras al Ain and Maalliye were under direct attack not only from Israeli artillery and air forces but also from the Israeli navy. Now, one year after the end of the war, the Israeli navy has long since withdrawn its warships from the waters off Lebanon’s coast.

Still, the area is once again on red alert. Six Spanish and Columbian UNIFIL troops died in a car bomb explosion between Marjayoun and Khiam at the end of June. Whether Sunni Islamist cells such as al Qaeda or pro-Syrian organizations linked to the Shiite Hezbollah party run by Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah were behind this is still unclear. A UN committee is investigating both possibilities.

“The attack was against all of us,” say sources at the Naqoura headquarters, where UNIFIL’s command has been based since 1978. The UN has already seen more than 250 of its personnel injured in its three-decade mission. However, the attack of June 24 created a new dimension: With Italy, France, Spain and Germany providing the majority of UN troops, a predominantly European stabilization force has become the target of the militants for the first time.

In Naqoura, nobody believes that the car bomb explosion will be the last attack on the UNIFIL forces, which were increased from about 2,000 to 13,000 troops in August 2006. “One cannot assume that nothing is going on,” UN staff members say privately. German admiral Karl-Wilhelm Bollow is also bracing himself. “We have taken all precautions against asymmetrical threats, from small weapons fire to tank shells,” he said. “However, the risk of attacks remains due to the presence of militias and armed groups in the country.”

Bollow heads UNIFIL’s Maritime Task Force (MTF), and commands almost 2,000 marines from Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Turkey. Their mission under UN Security Council resolution 1701 is to prevent the smuggling of weapons from the Mediterranean into Lebanon. However, the soldiers, who have searched over 7,000 ships since last October, have so far found nothing. “We have found no evidence of weapon smuggling by sea,” said Bollow.

In Lebanon, Nasrallah’s Hezbollah, which has been labeled a “terrorist organization” by the U.S., is clearly preparing itself for an offensive. “Suspected Hezbollah armed elements are alleged to be constructing new facilities in the Bekaa Valley, including command and control centers, developing rocket launching capabilities and conducting military training exercises,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the latest report on the implementation of resolution 1701.

It states, too, that the first Katjusha rocket attack since the end of the war has occurred. Two rockets landed in northern Israel on June 17 – Hezbollah denies any responsibility. Nevertheless, the party, a former participant in the Lebanese civil war which refused to disarm in 1990, provides grounds for concern.

“We are victorious,” reads a Hezbollah billboard only five miles north of the Israeli border. Within sight of UNIFIL headquarters hangs an oversized picture of the Israeli warship INS Hanit that was hit by an Islamist rocket in mid-July 2006. “More to come,” reads the derisive subtitle. The attack – carried out by an Iranian-produced C-802 Silkworm – was announced by Nasrallah live on television on the third evening of the war. This was Hezbollah’s greatest propaganda victory during the 34-day conflict.

The German Navy lists the C-802 in its literature on potential threats. Since the beginning of the battle for the north Lebanese-Palestinian camp at Nahr al-Barid in May, in which army units and fighters of the Islamist Fatah al Islam group are involved, the risk of a renewed attack has risen. Arrested Fatah al Islam fighters as well as the deputy head of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, call “the presence of international forces and crusaders” in Lebanon “unacceptable.”

The dates of the latest attacks have been imprinted on the memories of the staff at UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura: June 17, June 24 and also July 25, 2006, when four UN observers died during an Israeli air attack near Khiam. The dates 6/17, 6/24, 7/25 – the numbers sound like the ticking of a time bomb. The only question remaining is: When will it explode?

– Markus Bickel lives in Beirut and is the Lebanon correspondent of the freelance foreign correspondents’ network, weltreporter.net