The call by al-Qaeda’s deputy chief for Sunni militants in Lebanon to attack UN peacekeepers is a bad omen for the country and a dangerous threat to its future, a Lebanese Cabinet minister said on Tuesday.
Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahri called on militants in an audiotape released on Tuesday “to expel the invading Crusaders who pretend to be peacekeeping forces in Lebanon and not to accept Resolution 1701.”
Al-Zawahri was referring to the UN resolution that ended the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. A 13,500-strong UN force, known as UNIFIL, monitors the truce in southern Lebanon.
“The road is long but they have to break the siege imposed on them and to shove their way to Palestine,” al-Zawahri said, referring to militants in Lebanon.
The authenticity of the audio could not be independently confirmed. But the voice sounded like past audiotapes from al-Zawahri, and the posting where it was found bore the logo of al-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s official media arm.
Lebanese Sports Minister Ahmed Fatfat told al-Arabiya television that al-Zawahri’s comments were “very dangerous and a bad omen for the Lebanese.”
“In any country where al-Zawahri and al-Qaeda settle, destruction prevails as we witnessed in a large number of countries,” Fatfat said.
UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane said extremists have made similar threats in the past but indicated the peacekeeping force has comprehensive security measures in place.
“We take all such threats seriously because the security and safety of UN personnel is paramount,” she said.
On Tuesday, Israel’s daily newspaper Haaretz quoted the UN secretary-general’s six-month report to the Security Council as saying that armed Hezbollah militants warded off UNIFIL peacekeepers last month when the they discovered a truck carrying weapons and ammunition belonging to the Lebanon-based guerrilla group.
Bouziane provided additional details on Tuesday, saying that a UNIFIL patrol observed a suspicious pickup truck towing a trailer on the night of March 30. When the patrol started following the pickup truck, it was blocked by two other vehicles carrying five armed passengers, she said.
The patrol challenged the armed men, who left the area shortly afterward before positive identification could be made, Bouziane said.
“Whereas the circumstances of the incident are under investigation, the presence of armed elements in our area of operations constitutes a flagrant violation of Security Council resolution 1701 and infringement of UNIFIL’s freedom of movement,” she said.
In other news from Lebanon, the parliament failed once again on Tuesday to elect a president in an ongoing deadlock that prompted Arab foreign ministers meeting in Kuwait to express dismay and indirectly rebuke Syria.
The stalemate has become Lebanon’s worst political crisis since its 1975 to 1990 civil war.
The parliament has tried 17 times since last September to vote in army commander General Michel Suleiman as a consensus president.
But opposition lawmakers have been ignoring slated parliament sessions, leaving the 128-seat house without the necessary two-thirds quorum needed for the balloting.
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