Report: Paris Informs Lebanese Officials about Troops Downsize
France has decided to decrease the number of its troops serving with UNIFIL despite pledges by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon that last week’s attack on his country’s peacekeepers would not dampen Paris’ commitment to the mission, An Nahar daily reported Tuesday.
The newspaper said consultations are underway between French army generals to set the number of the downsize before informing the U.N. peacekeeping leadership that is reviewing UNIFIL’s strategic mission about their decision.
Five French members of UNIFIL were wounded on Friday when a bomb targeted their patrol on the outskirts of the southern coastal city of Tyre. Two passers-by were also injured.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the third this year on UNIFIL soldiers.
In July, six French troops were wounded, one of them seriously, in Sidon, in an attack similar to Friday's. In May, six Italian peacekeepers were wounded in the same city, also in a roadside bombing.
Three Spanish and three Colombian peacekeepers were killed in June 2007 when a booby-trapped car exploded as their patrol vehicle drove by.
Lebanese leaders were officially informed about the French decision on Monday, An Nahar said.
But Fillon, who spoke at a military base in the northeastern French town of Saint Dizier, paid homage to the injured soldiers and said the attack “will not shake our determination.”
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Sunday that Syria and Hizbullah were probably behind the bombing. But Damascus and the Shiite party denied the accusations.
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