UNIFIL Deployment to Be Finished on Monday: PMLebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss has said the deployment of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) will be completed on Monday in the entire zone that was vacated by the May 24 Israeli withdrawal, local media reported Monday."I do not see any hindrances to this deployment after it is verified on Monday that all encroachments have been corrected," said the prime minister. The UNIFIL has been deployed in four vacated locations over the weekend, and the operation to deploy UN peacekeepers in the rest of the liberated zone is scheduled for Monday, according to reports of the An Nahar and As Safir newspapers. Units from UNIFIL's Indian, Ghanaian, Irish, Finnish, Nepalese and Fijian battalions will be involved in the final deployment once the Ukrainian contingent completes the dismantling of some 130,000 land mines left behind by Israeli troops, said An Nahar paper. However, French peacekeepers were excluded from the deployment in the liberated zone, said As Safir paper. The United Nations announced on Saturday the Lebanese government has given permission to deploy UN peacekeepers along its borders with Israel. Lebanon blocked the deployment of UN troops and its own soldiers in the south before Israel had ended all border violations. There has been no official word when a Lebanese task force of 1, 000 army troops and police will be deployed in the vacated strip. President Emile Lahoud Saturday urged government troops and resistance fighters to remain on "maximum alert and readiness" as long as no comprehensive peace has yet been attained to ensure an Israeli withdrawal from Syria's Golan Heights and to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their land. Lebanon has been under international pressure to approve the UN peacekeepers' deployment and send its own troops to the borders ever since Israel withdrew its troops from south Lebanon. Hezbollah guerrillas, who had spearheaded the guerrilla fight against Israeli occupation, took charge of security in the vacated area after Israel's pullout. |
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