Palestinians Fire On U.N. Team
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
UNITED NATIONS – Armed Palestinian Arabs fired yesterday on a U.N. team that was sent to Lebanon to verify a Security Council resolution aimed at ending Syria’s occupation.
The U.N. representatives were dispatched to Lebanon late last month to confirm that Syria has withdrawn all the occupation troops, equipment, and intelligence agents ahead of Lebanon’s scheduled elections. The shooting incident occurred in the Bekaa Valley, in the country’s eastern region, where, according to Lebanese press reports, Syrian operatives have dug in despite the April 26 display of troop withdrawal.
The Bekaa Valley is close to the Syrian border and, for decades, has hosted a smorgasbord of terrorist organizations from around the world. According to a U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, guards at a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command camp fired “warning shots” at the U.N. verification team yesterday morning. The PFLP-GC terrorist organization is headed by Ahmed Jibril and has its headquarters in Damascus.
“That’s a joke,” Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fayssal Mekdad, told reporters when asked whether the shooting was an indication that Syria still occupies parts of Lebanon despite its promise that all troops left late last month. “There are no Syrian personnel there at all.”
Secretary-General Annan, however, cited in a recent report Lebanese sources who have said that Syrian intelligence and operatives linger in areas controlled by Hezbollah and Palestinian Arabs. After being urged by France and America to do so, the Security Council issued a statement yesterday expressing concern that some provisions in resolution 1559 have not been met. The council’s statement acknowledged that some progress has been made.
“A lot more needs to be done for implementing 1559,”said America’s acting U.N. ambassador, Anne Patterson, characterizing the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon as “partial.” She said that yesterday’s shooting “shows how dangerous things still remain in Lebanon.”
Separately, the director of the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division, Carina Perelli, and a member of her staff, Scott Smith, flew to Beirut yesterday to help prepare for next month’s general election.
