Lebanese cabinet approves army deployment
16/08/2006 - 18:43:44The Lebanese cabinet today approved a plan to deploy the army south of the Litani River to extend government authority over the region, a key provision of the UN ceasefire plan that ended 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
But the decision left unclear what to do about Hezbollah’s presence and weapons in the region bordering Israel. It was widely believed, however, that the army did not plan to actively disarm the guerrillas but to allow Hezbollah fighters to store their weapons and lock up their bunkers.
“The will be no confrontation between the army and brothers in Hezbollah. ... That is not the army’s mission. ... They are not going to chase and, God forbid, exact revenge (on Hezbollah),” said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi after the two-hour Cabinet meeting.
The Cabinet session on implementing the ceasefire was twice delayed after it became effective on Monday because to Hezbollah members of the government objected to enforcement of the key UN demand that the guerrilla force be disarmed.
The army, which had been assembling north of the Litani, was to cross the river tomorrow morning. In conjunction with UN peacekeepers already in the south, the army will gradually take over territory from which Israeli forces are withdrawing.
“There will be no authority or weapons other than those of the state,” said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi.
Israel had threatened to halt its withdrawal if the Lebanese force did not move south.
Reading from a Cabinet statement, he said the army’s mission was “to defend the national territory, safeguard security ... and prevent any authority of any kind outside that of the Lebanese state.”
The government ordered the army to “insure respect” for the Blue Line, the UN-demarcated border between Lebanon and Israel, and “apply the existing laws with regard to any weapons outside the authority of the Lebanese state.”
That provision does not require Hezbollah to give up its arms, but rather directs them to keep them off the streets.
Hezbollah’s top official in south Lebanon issued the strongest indication yet that the guerrillas would not disarm in the region or withdraw, but rather melt into the local population and hide their weapons.
Hezbollah will have “no visible military presence,” Sheikh Nabil Kaouk told reporters in Tyre.
The Lebanese army has been preparing troops for the past few days for the deployment.
The Cabinet approved the requirement of the UN ceasefire resolution requirement that the army sends 15,000 soldiers to the south to be joined by an equal number of UN peacekeepers to patrol the region between the Israeli border and the Litani River, 18 miles to the north.
It would mark the first time Lebanon’s national army moved in force to a region that was held by Palestinian guerrillas in the 1970s and by Hezbollah since Israel’s troop withdrawal from the area in 2000.
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