[Reuters] Louis Charbonneau - UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told the Security Council on Thursday that an illegal weapons stockpile that exploded last week in southern Lebanon belonged to Hizbullah. "The depot belonged to Hizbullah, and, in contrast to previous discoveries by UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces of weapons and ammunition...it was not abandoned but, rather, actively maintained." The mere presence of such weapons and ammunition south of the Litani River represented a "serious violation of Resolution 1701," he said. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah, banned all unauthorized weapons between the Litani River and the Israeli-Lebanese border. U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff joined in accusing Hizbullah of violating the UN weapons embargo in southern Lebanon and undermining the efforts of UN peacekeepers there.
2009-07-24 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive