Middle East Continued Again...

[Ecthy]

And more tanks like ours... Leos

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The real evil hear is Hezbollah using the UN as human shields and the UN higher command not letting their soldiers defend themselves from such tragic abuse.

This shows how outside interventions distort conflicts, and how dangerous it could be for Israel to have a larger UN force on the ground for Hezb to hide behind.

[Guardian]

Yep, sending the Leos in there was a damn fine move, although it did harvest some criticism at the time.

During the 2 hours of fighting, they fired a total of 72 105 mm rounds, of which 44 were brisant, 9 phosphor and 19 armour piercing. It was later clear that the last grenade fired had hit an unprotected ammunition supply that caused huge explosions – and probably a large number of casualties.

Shortly after the clash, the Bosnian Serbs reported the loss of 9 men. But other sources estimate it to around 150 soldiers having been killed and a similar number wounded.

If it was up to me, this would be the kind of thing that would usually happen to people shooting at the UN - or trying to use them as "human shields" for that matter.

In my opinion, if one of the warring parties is deliberately trying to put UN people in harm's way, the UN forces should have a right to consider themselves under attack by the said party and take steps to defend themselves.

On the other hand, this might encourage warring parties to try to force each other into positions close to the UN posts because getting your enemies to fire at you from such positions could trigger a UN intervention against your enemies.

[Guardian]

Originally posted by MOBIUS

Just like the USS Liberty, the world's most sophisticated surveillance ship at the time was inconvenience in 1967...

Have you read those links I provided, Guardian? Chilling stuff bearing an awful resemblance to the UN deaths.

I haven't read it just now, but I am familiar with the USS Liberty incident.

In case anyone here is not familiar with it and can't be bothered to click the link, I'll type up a brief summary here:

On the morning of June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what was later to become known as the 6 Day War, the American surveillance ship USS Liberty was on patrol in international waters off the coast of Sinai, near Gaza.

The Israelis knew exactly where the ship was, it was overflown by IAF aircraft several times during the night and morning and every time the Americans could hear the Israeli aircrew report back that the ship was American. The crew of the Liberty say some of these planes even came close enough for the pilots to exchange friendly waves with the people on deck.

Then, at about 2 pm (14:00) the USS Liberty was attacked by IAF fighters and Israeli torpedo boats. The attack lasted for almost 1,5 hours, killed 34 of the crew and damaged the ship so badly that it was later scrapped.

Israel later claimed to have mistaken the USS Liberty for the Egyptian supply ship El Quisir, which was out of service and rusting away in port at that time. They claimed the Liberty was operating in a war zone without a flag and that she refused to identify herself when called upon to do so.

The crew of the Liberty say they were in international waters - not in a war zone, that they were flying a nice, big, clean American flag and that they knew for a fact (from intercepted radio transmissions) that the Israelis already knew who they were. They also maintain that their ship did not look much like the El Quisir (photos provided at the USS Liberty web site - www.ussliberty.org).

During the attack, the crew of the Liberty desperately called for help and two aircraft carriers operating with the US 6th Fleet further out to sea responded. Twice they launched fighters to come to the Liberty's aid - and twice the fighters were recalled - on orders from Washington.

In fact, the US Navy did not arrive to rescue their stricken comrades until the next day and even then they came in only after dragging their feet, making a lot of fuzz about it and broadcasting details about the mission in the clear.

Today, 39 years later, the attack on the USS Liberty remains the only major maritime incident in the history of the United States Navy that has never been publicly investigated by Congress. The Liberty survivors have repeatedly called for a congressional hearing, but evidently it's more important not to embarrass an ally...

In his book "Animal Farm", George Orwell suggested that "Some animals are more equal than others."

Some countries too, it seems.

A couple of years ago, when this incident was discussed in this forum, I remember Eli saying there's no way this was really an accident. He said something like "I hope we had a good reason."

Maybe they did - in their opinion. We'll probably never know.

[Chemical Ollie]

According to a Swedish UN officer interviewed on the radio news, the distance between the Hezbollah position and the blown UN bunker was 3-400 meters.

[dannubis]

So now it is basically: "Sorry we didn't mean to kill your soldiers, just the guys three meters away from them. And we chose to use a 1000 kg bomb to do it"

That really makes sense to me.

[Traianvs]

Don't try to find any sensible actions dannubis. There isn't any sense

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by dannubis
So now it is basically: "Sorry we didn't mean to kill your soldiers, just the guys three meters away from them. And we chose to use a 1000 kg bomb to do it"

That really makes sense to me.

There are something called zeroes and you seems to have dropped a couple of those according to CO's reference - is this just a reading disability or on purpose ?

[notyoueither]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/middleeast-crisis/un.html

...

A history of casualties
The deaths at Khiyam weren't the first UN casualties in Lebanon. They weren't even the first since this current round of fighting began: A Nigerian peacekeeper was killed a week ago by an Israeli bomb when he left his post to retrieve some personal items from his home in a suburb of Tyre as it was under attack.

Since it began its mission in southern Lebanon, the UN has lost 262 personnel. It's a dangerous place in which Hezbollah routinely attempts cross-border raids or rocket attacks and Israel responds with artillery or aerial bombardments.

In the past two weeks of heavy fighting, there have been 145 incidents of "close firing" near UN posts and four sites have suffered direct hits, UN spokespeople say. All are believed to be by Israeli forces.

Peacekeepers might have thought they would be immune from such attacks. In 1996, during a similar kind of campaign, an Israeli bomb killed over 100 civilians who were sheltering at a UN post. The international outcry from that incident was huge.

But as Maj. Hess-von Kruedener phlegmatically observed a week ago, in an e-mail to CTV: "We have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing. The closest artillery has landed within two metres of our position and the closest 1,000 [pound] aerial bomb has landed 100 metres from our patrol base.

"This has not been deliberate targeting," he said, "but has rather been due to tactical necessity."

That last line has been read to imply that Hezbollah fighters also use the UN posts as cover from which to launch their rocket attacks and Israel is trying to hunt them down.

On the day in question, however, the UN stressed there were no Hezbollah spotted within at least a kilometre of the Khiyam post. Though that is not a great distance to cover in a pick-up truck full of small rockets.

Why would Israel target the Khiyam post?
The constancy of the Israeli bombardment, over six hours in duration and involving both artillery and the air force, says this incident was not simply a one-off mistake by some kind of cowboy pilot.

The most common explanation for what occurred is that Israeli officers felt there were Hezbollah fighters trying to use it as a shield and that decisions were being made at a very local level.

The Khiyam post is not only one of the oldest (and best marked) UN posts in southern Lebanon, it is also one of the more strategic. It is on a plateau that overlooks an expansive valley to the south, a valley that has often been an important invasion route in the past.

The post is also said to enjoy a commanding view of the Israeli army's forward positions on the Golan Heights to the east. So from an Israeli point of view it would be a key enemy launching site if it could be controlled, even for a short time.

A more Machiavellian interpretation is that Israel was trying to send a message to the international community, perhaps not realizing that the post was still occupied, to deter it from sending in a more robust peacekeeping force that might prevent Israel from dealing with Hezbollah as it saw fit.

The only problem with that theory is that Israel itself has called for an international force to police southern Lebanon and help it control Hezbollah. That appeal is likely to fall on many more deaf ears now.

[CrONoS]

Oil spilled from IAF bombed power plant pollutes Lebanon's coast

By Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz Correspondent and the Associated Press

A south Lebanon power plant that was knocked down by Israel Air Force planes some two weeks ago caused a massive oil spill along the Beirut's coast.

Lebanon has made an urgent request to the UN in recent days for assistance in the ecological crisis.

Fishermen say hundreds of oil-coated fish have been washed ashore in what is the country's worst ever environmental disaster.

Lebanon approached the UN because it doesn't have the means to treat an environmental crisis of this magnitude. The UN has developed in recent years a contingency plan, involving the cooperation between several countries, to treat this kind of pollution.

"Countries such as Algeria and Cyprus as well as the European Union have expressed willingness to give immediate aid. However, clean-up activity will not be able to begin until the military operation ceases. In general, we are talking about clean-up by hand along wide stretches of coast," said Louisa Koalsimona of the UN emergency response program in Malta.

About 130 kilometers of Lebanon's shores had been affected by the spill of at least 15,000 tons of oil from the Jiyeh plant, about 20 kilometers south of Beirut, the city's mayor, Abdel Monem Ariss, said Friday.

The plant was in flames after it was hit in IAF air raids, cutting off electricity to many areas in the capital and south Lebanon.

Ariss said the oil spill so far covers shores about 45 kilometers north of Beirut and 85 kilometers to the south - as far south as the port city of Sidon and as far as Shakaa in the north.

"Depending on how the wind is blowing, I think many shores will be soiled with this oil spill," Ariss told The Associated Press. He said there were reports of the spill reaching outside the Syrian harbor of Latakia, about 120 kilometers north of Beirut.

A shipment of 10 trucks from Kuwait containing material and equipment was to arrive Friday night via Syria to help contain the spill, but crews could not get to the shores to start cleanup work because of the hostilities, Ariss said.

"It's going to take a long time to clean it because most of our shores are rocky shores and when the oil sticks to the rock you have to scrub it [by hand]," he said.

Fishermen on Beirut's only sandy public beach of Ramlet al-Baida said the black slick appeared about 10 days ago, accompanied by a strong smell of fuel. Some residents have said they had trouble breathing.

Fisherman Salim Yazmanji, 32, said as many as 100 fish can wash up on every 10-meter stretch of the beach and that he had lost his livelihood.

"I have nothing but the sea," Yazmanji said. "If you take the sea from a fisherman, he will die, like the fish."

Ariss said it appeared other factors also contributed to the environmental disaster - a leak from an Egyptian commercial boat that was apparently hit by a Hezbollah missile off Beirut, another leak from an Israeli gunboat also hit by Hezbollah, as well as effluent from a cement factory in northern Lebanon that was attacked by Israeli forces.

"It's a little bit more than speculation. There are targets we knew contained oil and spilled; they received direct hits, some of them burned," he said.

The Green Line Association, a Lebanese environmental group, said in a press release that four of the six fuel tanks at Jiyeh's power plant have burned completely, while the fifth, which is the main cause of the spill, was still burning. It said the Lebanese Environment Ministry was worried that the sixth tank, which is underground, will explode.

Ariss said if the spill is not contained soon it will spread to the rest of the Mediterranean.

"I think there will be more than Lebanon that is going to be involved in this oil spill," he said.

"I think the marine life has been heavily affected and will continue to be affected as long as the oil remains in the waters and on the shores," he added.

Not a good move from IAF.
Dont know why they keep targeting the entire nation. Lebanon was in a good way to become a vacation destination from the entire middle-east, investiment was not bad...

[DinoDoc]

Failed states don't seem like they make for major vacation spots, cronos_qc.

[Chemical Ollie]

Things change. Cyprus is a perfect vacation spot, but it used to be a failed state. My brother was there and dodged some bullets as a rifleman on a UN mission in the 70's, and people were still killed in clashes only a few years ago. Still, it's a place where I gladely take my kids.

[DinoDoc]

Yet, I don't see any prospect of that changing in Lebanon's foreseeable future. Given Hezbolah's ouitright rejection of any measure that might lead to them being disarmed. A state can not survive two groups claiming to be the legitimate authority in matters of war and peace.

[germanos]

Lebanon is and has been a major vacation spot for years on end. I'll grant you that it's been mostly wealthy (gulf) arabs that flock there, but that doesn't make a difference, really.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Failed states don't seem like they make for major vacation spots, cronos_qc.

Tell that the the tens of thousands of tourists who had to be evacuated. When not in civil war, Lebanon has always been a big tourist destination.