Attacks on Peacekeepers Increase : U.N. Insignia No Longer a Safeguard in S. Lebanon

It used to be that the safest way to visit southern Lebanon was under the auspices of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon--UNIFIL, as the peacekeeping troops are called.

The Shia Muslims who make up a majority of the region’s people were generally friendly to the U.N. troops. They were viewed as an economic asset and a moderating influence on the hated Israelis and their militia proxy, the mostly Christian South Lebanon Army.

The large “U.N.” insignia on the side of an unarmed, white UNIFIL jeep was all the protection necessary for virtually worry-free travel throughout most of the area, from the Litani River south to the Israeli border.

But when U.N. officers escorted a group of Western journalists on a tour of southern Lebanon this week, there was a change: They traveled not in jeeps but in armored personnel carriers.

It was a telling change, reflecting a shift both in the nature and level of violence here in one of the world’s most persistent trouble spots.

Increasingly militant Shias have killed five U.N. peacekeeping soldiers and wounded three dozen others in the last month, in the most serious outbreak of violence in the region since Israel withdrew most of its troops from southern Lebanon in early 1985, three years after it invaded Lebanon to drive Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas away from its northern border.

There also has been a series of bold Shia attacks on South Lebanon Army (SLA) positions in the so-called “security zone” that Israel maintains immediately north of the border, a strip of land six to 10 miles deep that acts as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel’s northernmost settlements. It is believed that there are several hundred Israeli troops patrolling the security zone.

Attacking in unprecedented numbers, Shia guerrillas have killed 15 of the Christian militiamen, wounded 30 more and overrun at least two South Lebanon Army positions in just the past two weeks.

The U.N. troops’ position, amid half a dozen warring Lebanese factions loyal to different masters, has grown increasingly precarious.

“Everybody knows that this is an absolutely impossible situation for a peacekeeping operation,” a source at UNIFIL headquarters said, asking that he not be further identified.

The recent course of events has threatened the very existence of the 5,800-man U.N. unit and given substance to longstanding warnings that Israel could be drawn back into the Lebanese quagmire by its commitment to stand behind the South Lebanon Army. More than that, Syria has promised to resist any new Israeli incursion, raising the danger of a clash between the Middle East’s two most heavily armed and intractable foes.

Situation Deteriorates

A two-day trip through the area, covering almost 100 miles including a drive along virtually the entire length of the international border and a tour of U.N. outposts, produced no indication that any wider explosion of fighting is imminent. But there was ample evidence that the situation has deteriorated seriously, and that it will likely get worse.

Some northern Israeli settlements were put on alert earlier this week, and on Monday hundreds of Israeli troops moved from their bases to assembly points near the border in an apparent warning to the increasingly aggressive Shia militants in Lebanon.

The troops were quickly withdrawn, however, and Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and army Chief of Staff Moshe Levy, sought to dispel fears of a new invasion, saying they will use only the force necessary to back up the South Lebanon Army.

The big problem in the south, U.N. and Israeli officials agree, is not the Palestinians but the increasingly militant Shia Muslims under the influence of the Iranian-supported Hezbollah (Party of God) movement.

Hezbollah wants to turn Lebanon into a fundamentalist Islamic republic free of foreign “contamination,” in contrast to the more moderate and secular Amal organization, which is still believed to represent most of the Shias.

Where opinions differ is over the cause of the radicalization and the solution.

Constant Irritant

Commenting on the Israelis’ security zone, the U.N. official here said: “Their continuing presence on Lebanese territory can serve only as a constant irritant. Obviously, it provokes all sorts of attacks. Even people who have no particular hate or quarrel with Israel will fight them as long as they stay in Lebanese territory.”

The official acknowledged that the most militant of the Shias are fighting more than the Israeli presence in Lebanon.

“There is obviously a question that Hezbollah, backed by Iran, doesn’t accept Israel’s existence as a state at all,” he said. “They do not want to stop the fight at the border. They want to ‘liberate’ Palestine--to ‘liberate’ Jerusalem. But most of the Shias in the south have lived with Israel as neighbors for decades. They don’t want to fight against Israel.”

In the U.N. view, if Israel would pull out of the south and disband the South Lebanon Army, the moderate Shia majority would have what it wants and, with the help of UNIFIL, would keep a rein on the more militant of their people.

Resolution Approved

That view was behind last Tuesday’s U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the south and the redeployment of UNIFIL into what is now the security zone. The resolution, adopted by a vote of 14-0, with the United States abstaining, also called on U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to report back to the council within 21 days on its implementation.

Israel, which has said it will eliminate the security zone only when there is a stable government in Lebanon capable of exercising authority over the country’s warring factions, rejected the U.N. call. It considers the present arrangement the best of a number of bad alternatives for protecting its northern settlements against attacks from Lebanon.

U.N. troops can help deter attacks, but they have no power to arrest and are under orders not to use force except in self-defense.

“We can’t start behaving like an occupying force,” the U.N. official here conceded. “We can’t go into the villages and start using an ‘iron fist’ ourselves.” He referred to occasional Israeli “search-and-destroy” incursions into Lebanon, which have been described as part of an “iron fist” policy of retaliation for attacks on Israeli interests.

Muslim Strength Growing

It is difficult to measure the amount of support for Hezbollah and other militant Shia groups here, but there is no question that their strength is growing.

Previously, according to Israeli military sources, attacks against their own and SLA forces in southern Lebanon have been carried out by individuals or small squads of fighters. But recent strikes against South Lebanon Army outposts have involved up to 50 well-armed fighters. The Israeli sources said some slain attackers wore scarfs on their heads with the slogan “Onward to Jerusalem.”

The Israelis contend that regular members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who infiltrated through the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley are training Hezbollah guerrillas and may be fighting alongside them. U.N. officials said they could not confirm any Iranian presence in the south.

In village after village in the region, there are posters commemorating Shia “martyrs” killed in fighting with the Israelis and their South Lebanon Army allies. Others show the face of Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Some Flee to North

Life appears to proceed normally in most towns, but some Lebanese have fled north as a result of the most recent flare-up.

“This village is almost empty because of the exchange of fire,” Capt. Pekka Sehari, a member of the U.N. force’s Finnish battalion, said as the reporters’ armored personnel carriers rolled through Kafra, about 15 miles slightly north and east of Naqoura.

Early on Sept. 11, what the Israelis described as a group of Hezbollah fighters briefly overran an SLA outpost overlooking Kafra, killing two men, wounding three and capturing an armored personnel carrier. Afterward, the South Lebanon Army shelled Kafra and three other nearby villages, using mortars, tanks and artillery.

The SLA shelling hit a U.N. position nearby, wounding five members of the force’s Nepalese battalion.

Precarious Position

UNIFIL’s precarious position was underlined in a warning posted in the headquarters of the Finnish battalion at Qalaouiye, about 15 miles east of Tyre: “If there is a danger because of . . . shooting at our position, the shelter alarm will be given by radio calling seltterihalytys (Finnish for “seek cover.”) You are asked immediately to seek shelter and stay there until the situation is over.”

According to a Finnish company commander, Maj. Mauri Ranta, SLA and Israel Defense Forces gunners on a nearby hill try to fire over the battalion headquarters at vehicles on the main road, and sometimes their rounds fall short.

Of more concern to U.N. commanders is the flurry of attacks by Lebanese groups. The trouble started last Aug. 11, when a French UNIFIL sentry shot and killed two Shia militiamen from the Amal movement at a roadblock. One of the two Muslims was a local hero, and the incident touched off attacks that night against nine French UNIFIL positions.

Before the fighting subsided the next day, 17 French soldiers were wounded and four more Lebanese were killed. U.N. officials and Amal acted quickly to bring the situation under control, but after a brief lull three French soldiers were killed by a remote-controlled bomb while jogging near the village of Jouaiya. Nine days later, on Sept. 13, a fourth French soldier was killed and three were wounded in a second bombing.

Irish Officer Slain

An Irish officer was killed in a separate incident, and alarmed U.N. officials ordered new security measures. The French battalion is being redeployed to reduce its exposure, and particularly vulnerable peacekeeping posts have already been closed.

But the incidents have caused a public backlash, especially in France, which has been hit by a recent series of terrorist bombings in Paris. Former External Relations Minister Jean Francois Poncet, a member of Parliament, has called on the French government to “withdraw from the trap” of Lebanon, “where U.N. forces can neither serve the cause of peace nor wage the war that is imposed on it.”

French Premier Jacques Chirac, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, called UNIFIL’s situation “intolerable.” But he told a press conference afterward that his government has no intention of withdrawing its troops.

The French battalion, with 1,500 men, is UNIFIL’s largest, and any withdrawal would throw the force’s future into grave doubt.

Intent Unclear

The U.N. source here said it is not clear whether the recent attacks were directed at the French or if they were meant to undermine UNIFIL.

Officials here noted that the spiritual leader of Lebanon’s Shia fundamentalists, Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, denounced the U.N. presence in a July 18 sermon, and soon afterward another prominent cleric charged that UNIFIL was in league with the Israelis.

Last month, Iran announced that it opposed the U.N. Security Council’s Resolution 425, which is the basis for UNIFIL’s presence here.

But according to other reports from Beirut, Hezbollah denies responsibility for the attacks on the U.N. soldiers.

The U.N. official here, asked if he believes that steps to lower the French battalion’s profile within UNIFIL will reduce attacks on the peacekeepers, replied: “I cannot give you really good answers. It’s speculative. We will see.”

Meanwhile, the official predicted that whatever happens to the U.N. troops, “the continued presence of the Israelis will undermine the moderates and strengthen the hand of the radicals” among the Shias.

He recalled that UNIFIL had predicted trouble last year, when Israel insisted on maintaining its security zone.

“For a while,” he said, “it was a bit of a joke, because nothing happened.”

It is not a joke any more.