LEBANON: IRISH PEACEKEEPING SOLDIER KILLED AS SLA SHELL HITS U.N. ARMY POST.

Record ID: 350036

  • Title: LEBANON: IRISH PEACEKEEPING SOLDIER KILLED AS SLA SHELL HITS U.N. ARMY POST.
  • Date: 31st May 1999
  • Summary: BARASHEET, SOUTHERN LEBANON (MAY 31, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV: AFTERMATH OF SHELLING ON U.N POST 0.07 2. MV: IRISH SOLDIER INSPECTING FIELD, UN VEHICLE 0.12 3. GV/GV/PAN: SOLDIERS LOOKING AT POST WHERE ONE COLLEAGUE WAS KILLED (3 SHOTS) 0.27 4. MCU: IMPACTS OF SHRAPNEL ON A WALL 0.39 5. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) COLO
  • Embargoed: 15th June 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BARASHEET, SOUTHERN LEBANON
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Reuters ID: LVA8ZDDIURPTJRQCRBL2EVCR9I7
  • Story Text: An Irish soldier on peacekeeping duties with the
    United Nations in Southern Lebanon has been killed.He died
    when shells fired by the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army hit a
    U.N.army post.

    According to the United Nations the SLA (South
    Lebanon Army) mortars were fired on Monday (May 31) in
    retaliation against a similar attack launched by guerrillas
    fighting the SLA and Israeli presence in the south.

    One of the SLA shells landed inside the U.N.post at
    Barasheet, killing 22-year-old Kedian Williams and wounding
    Roland Rushe, 23, and 20-year-old Darren Clarke.All were
    soldiers in the Irish battalion of the U.N.Interim Force in
    Lebanon (UNIFIL).

    Barasheet is a frontline village and the U.N.has several
    positions there.

    In Beirut, the pro-Syrian Amal group said its guerrillas
    had attacked several SLA and Israeli positions in the south,
    including Barasheet.

    Both Israel and the guerrillas are barred from targeting
    civilians under a 1996 ceasefire deal struck after more than
    200 people, mostly civilians, were killed during an Israeli
    blitz.

    Pro-Iranian Hizbollah, Amal and other guerrillas are
    fighting to oust Israel and the SLA from a 15-km (nine-mile)
    deep occupation zone set up in 1985 with the declared aim of
    preventing attacks on Israel's northern border.

    The SLA, which helps Israel patrol the zone, said on
    Monday it would leave Jezzine enclave, an area jutting north
    of the zone which the militia has controlled since 1985.

    SLA commander Antoine Lahd said the SLA would start
    evacuating the area on Tuesday.

    Two hundred and twenty-six U.N.peacekeepers have been
    killed since the inception of UNIFIL in 1978, 40 of them from
    Ireland.

    UNIFIL has 4,500 soldiers from nine countries -- Fiji,
    Ireland, India, Poland, Nepal, Ghana, France, Finland and
    Italy.

    It was set up to restore the Lebanese government's
    authority over the south when the U.N.Security Council
    ordered Israel to withdraw its troops from the country after
    its 1978 invasion.


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