Asarta Fears a Deteriorating Security Situation in the South

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Commander Major General Alberto Asarta expressed frustration over the unstable security situation in the South, As Safir newspaper reported on Wednesday.

“After I have praised for a year and a half the ideal security situation in the South, saying that that this region is the most stable,” the situation deteriorated, the daily quoted Asarta as telling Speaker Nabih Berri during a meeting at Ain el-Tineh on Tuesday.

Sources told An Nahar newspaper Berri stressed that only the army-people-resistance equation salvages Lebanon. They said such a comment is a direct hit at United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 and consolidates attempts to downsize the peacekeeping forces.

The resolution was intended to end the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, called on the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, where no armed forces other than UNIFIL and Lebanese will be south of the Litani River.

According to As Safir, Asarta stressed the "good" relations between the UNIFIL and southern Lebanon’s residents including supporters of AMAL and Hizbullah.

Last week, five French members of the UNIFIL were wounded when a bomb targeted their patrol on the outskirts of the coastal city of Tyre, and two passers-by were also wounded.

In July, six French UNIFIL troops were wounded, one of them seriously, in the southern coastal town of Sidon. In May, six Italian peacekeepers were wounded in Sidon, 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.