Crossfire War – PARIS WATCH – Eastern Mediterranean Theatre: Paris – Beirut – Rome – Berlin/Jerusalem – Damascus – Tehran; Israel Threatens to Bombard UNIFIL Headquarters in S. Lebanon if UNIFIL Attacks Israel Flights Over Lebanon
Night Watch: BEIRUT – This is an immediate follow up to yesterday’s article on how the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has enlarged the war in West Asia by extending it into the eastern Mediterranean off the coasts of Israel-Syria-Lebanon. UNIFIL commander, French General Alain Pellegrini met Saturday, at the UNIFIL headquarters in Beirut, with the European Union foreign policy representative Javier Solana to convince him the EU should pressure Israel to halt its overflights into Lebanon, a violation of the ceasefire agreement in August. As the news has stated constantly since the ceasefire Israel conducts the flights in order to monitor Hezbollah’s arms smuggling, which is also in flagrant violation. [IRNA]
UNIFIL has done nothing to prevent Hezbollah’s weapons trafficking that is done with the complete official support of Damascus-Tehran. UNIFIL and General Pellegrini have not even complained about it but he has complained about Israel’s overflights even going so far as to say UNIFIL may stop Israel’s flights by force. The French have installed anti-aircraft batteries in south Lebanon and a few weeks ago there was a standoff, a brief confrontation, between French and Israeli armor.
In response Jerusalem has just announced if UNIFIL fires on Israel’s flights then Israel will bombard UNIFIL headquarters in south Lebanon. In unofficial support of that bombardment will be Damascus-Tehran who also hate the European-UNIFIL presence in Lebanon, which they probably view as Paris’ way of re-establishing its control over the Levant, countries in the eastern Mediterranean that had been under Paris’ control during the latter half of the 19th century. Massive economic contacts remain but Paris is in serious, deadly competition with Tehran as to who can be the most powerful economic presence.
Shortly after European forces began to arrive Tehran had al-Qaeda declare UNIFIL to be an enemy of Islam. The only question is who will do the most damage to them, Israel or Syria-Iran.
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