Beirut - The Italian contingent in the United Nations
Interim Forces in Southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) Sunday arrested two
people disguised as cleaners trying to smuggle 'plastic material that
could be explosives' into a UN base in southern Lebanon, a UN
statement said.
According to a statement from the Italian peacekeeping force,
their troops arrested two Lebanese men on charges of smuggling
plastic explosives into their headquarters in the southern town of
Tebnine.
'The two suspects were turned over to the Lebanese Army along with
the 'small quantity of plastic material that could be explosives,'
the statement said. The men were identified only by their initials AZ
and AH.
The suspicious plastic was found in a garbage truck during a
routine search.
Lebanese security sources said the two suspects were cleaners who
were employed by UNIFIL's Italian battalion and had been working at
their Tebnine headquarters for more than two years. The men were
residents of the village of Jmaiyjmeh, which is close to Tebnine.
Earlier, a UN source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that 'the
explosives were hidden in a garbage truck trying to enter the Tebnine
base.'
Italy has 2,500 troops in southern Lebanon, the largest contingent
working within UNIFIL.
The peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon grew from around 2,300
to 15,000, in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution in
August 2006 that halted 33 days of fighting between Israel and
Hezbollah.
Since December 2008, UNIFIL has taken extra precautionary measures
after receiving threats from fundamentalist groups with close links
to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
On June 25, 2007, six UN peacekeepers from the Spanish battalion
were killed and two others injured in a car bombing that targeted
their patrol in southern Lebanon.
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