LEBANON: Five UN peacekeepers killed in blast in southern Lebanon

Record ID: 352437

  • Title: LEBANON: Five UN peacekeepers killed in blast in southern Lebanon
  • Date: 25th June 2007
  • Summary: (W4) KHIYAM, LEBANON (JUNE 24, 2007)(REUTERS) VARIOUS UNIFIL AND LEBANESE TROOPS AT SITE OF ATTACK AMBULANCE DRIVING UNIFIL SOLDIERS AT SCENE OF ATTACK WITH DEBRIS IN BACKGROUND UNIFIL TROOPS LOOKING THROUGH WRECKAGE UNIFIL TROOPS TREATING INJURED AT SCENE UNIFIL TROOPS CARRYING INJURED SOLDIER INJURED SOLDIER BEING SUPPORTED WALKING AWAY FROM SCENE UNIFIL TROOPS AT SCENE
  • Embargoed: 10th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Reuters ID: LVA3JZZN1PJ9YP91S2IJUR4HN7N9
  • Story Text: A car bomb, "most likely" driven by a suicide bomber, killed five U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon on Sunday (June 24), a police source said.
    It was the first deadly attack on the 13,000-strong United Nations force since last year's Israel-Hezbollah war and drew swift condemnation from the United States, France and others.
    The source said a mangled car was found at the scene with human remains inside. Security sources had said earlier the blast was caused by a roadside bomb detonated by remote control.
    Spain's defence minister said two Spanish and three Colombian peacekeepers, all serving in the Spanish army, had been killed in the blast. Earlier Lebanese security sources had said five Spaniards were killed.
    The attack hit two U.N. vehicles near the southern town of Khiyam. Witnesses said ammunition in a troop carrier had exploded after the initial blast. Two soldiers on top of the vehicle were blown dozens of metres (yards) into a field. Two of those who died inside were burnt beyond recognition.
    There was no immediate claim for the attack, which occurred just hours after Lebanese troops killed seven Islamist militants in a raid on a block of flats in the northern city of Tripoli.
    A spokesman for Fatah al-Islam, an al Qaeda-inspired Sunni group, which has been battling Lebanese troops in a Palestinian refugee camp, Nahr al-Bared, near Tripoli for the past five weeks, accused UNIFIL on June 2 of bombarding the camp. UNIFIL denied it.
    A few days later, a small bomb was found and defused in Tyre, near a beach resort frequented by UNIFIL personnel.
    UNIFIL had gone on higher alert after the Nahr al-Bared fighting began. Blast walls were erected around the building housing United Nations agencies in downtown Beirut.
    Last Sunday two rockets fired from south Lebanon landed in Israel, causing no casualties. Hezbollah denied involvement.
    UNIFIL's previous commander said this year that Sunni Islamist militants were his biggest security worry.
    The Shi'ite Hezbollah group, which has had no visible armed presence in the south since the July-August 2006 war, denounced what it called an attack aimed at destabilising the country, saying it "hurts the people of the south and of Lebanon".
    Lebanese politicians flocked to condemn the bombing, which Saad al-Hariri, Sunni leader of the ruling Western-backed coalition, described as "a grave terrorist attack".
    Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called his Spanish counterpart to decry the bombing, which he said would "only increase the Lebanese government's determination to implement (U.N. Security Council) resolution 1701 literally and step up cooperation between the Lebanese army and UNIFIL".
    Resolution 1701 halted hostilities in the Israel-Hezbollah war and mandated the deployment of an expanded UNIFIL. In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in denouncing the attack on the Spanish U.N. soldiers. "I join you in absolutely condemning any attack that was launched against them," she said.
    Spain has 1,100 troops serving in the UNIFIL force which patrols the south and Lebanese coastal waters.
    UNIFIL has suffered 260 fatalities since it was set up after an Israeli invasion in 1978. The dead include 250 troops, two military observers, four international and four local staff.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register