Italy Approves Withdrawal of 700 Soldiers from UNIFIL

The Italian Senate agreed on Wednesday to withdraw 700 soldiers from the United Nations Interim force in Lebanon, reported AKI Italian news agency.

This decision was part of an agreement to lower the number of Italian troops from international peacemaking missions from 9,250 to 2,028 in 2012.

The decision also encompasses reducing the number of Italian troops in Libya and the Balkans, with 884 troops returning from the former and 271 from the latter.

On May 27, six Italian peacekeepers were wounded -- two of them seriously -- along with two civilians in a roadside bomb explosion targeting a U.N. patrol along a highway near the Lebanese southern city of Sidon, officials said.

"There was an explosion late afternoon that targeted a UNIFIL logistics convoy along the main highway near Sidon," UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh told Agence France Presse.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Italy was "intent" on reducing its presence in Lebanon which currently numbers nearly 1,800 Italian soldiers.

"It's obvious that this is a decision that will be communicated in a U.N. context because this is not an Italian mission, it's a U.N. mission," he said.

UNIFIL, a multinational force which currently has 12,000 troops stationed in south Lebanon, was initially set up to monitor Lebanon's border with Israel.

It was expanded after a devastating 2006 war between the Jewish state and Hizbullah.

Some 292 peacekeepers have been killed since the force was established in 1978.

It has been the target of four other unclaimed attacks, the latest on Tuesday when French officers were wounded by a roadside bomb near Sidon.

In the deadliest incident, three Spanish and three Colombian peacekeepers were killed in June of 2007 when a booby-trapped car exploded as their patrol vehicle drove by.