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Lebanon OKs Arms Shipments to Hizbullah
Middle East Newsline
NICOSIA [MENL] -- The United Nations has determined that Lebanon continues to facilitate the Iranian shipment of weapons to Hizbullah.
UN officials said the government of Prime
Minister Fuad Siniora has acknowledged that the Lebanese military has been ordered to facilitate weapons shipments from Syria. They said that over the last month a shipment of rockets and other weapons from Syria was permitted
entry in Lebanon for delivery to Hizbullah in the Bekaa Valley.
"This has been a major violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559," an official said.
The Siniora government acknowledged the
approval of at least one weapons shipment from Syria. At the time, the government refused to disclose the end user of the weapons that arrived in Lebanon on Jan. 31.
Over the last few weeks, UN special envoy to the
Middle East Terje Larsen confirmed that the weapons were bound for Hizbullah. Larsen's investigation determined that the weapons came from Iran, flown to Damascus and arrived at the Syrian-Lebanese border in several trucks.
Officials said a Lebanese military unit stopped the trucks and informed their commanders. After several hours, officials said, Defense Minister Elias Murr ordered the trucks to enter Lebanon and proceed without interference.
Officials said the Defense Ministry informed the UN that Hizbullah was not regarded as a militia. Instead, the ministry classified Hizbullah a "resistance group" permitted to bear arms and fight Israel.
As a result, the UN Security Council published a statement that termed the Lebanese government decision a violation of Resolution 1559, which called for the dismantling of all militias in Lebanon. The statement warned Beirut
not to allow the incident to recur.
On Jan. 31, the council called on Beirut to undertake additional efforts to control its territory and disband militias. A UN statement on Feb. 24 said the council also urged Syria to
cooperate with those efforts and "take measures to stop movements of arms and personnel into Lebanon."
Lebanese government sources said Siniora has also failed to respond to a U.S. request for the extradition
of four Lebanese nationals charged with conducting a mass-casualty strike against the U.S. military in 1983.
The four, all members of Hizbullah, were said to have participated in the suicide truck bombing of U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut in which more than 100 soldiers were killed.
One of the Lebanese sought by the United
States has been Imad Mughniyeh, regarded as the commander of Hizbullah's foreign operations. Mughniyeh was last seen during a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Damascus on Jan. 19. It was the first time
Mughniyeh has been photographed since 1995.
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