Gauntlet

Hezbollah has, for all intents and purposes, thrown down a gauntlet in front of the UN peacekeeping force. A senior Hezbollah official announced that so long as UNIFIL sticks to guarding Lebanon from Israeli incursions, Hezbollah will have no problems with the force. The implicit threat is that if the UN peacekeepers try to disarm Hezbollah, or crack down on weapons smuggling, there will be trouble.

"UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon) is here to protect the Lebanese and Lebanon's sovereignty, and we want its mandate limited to that," in which case there "will be no problems," Nabil Qaouk, the group's chief in the south, told AFP Saturday.

"We want the new UNIFIL to do its work in conformity with" UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which led to an August 14 truce in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

"Israel is seeking to have this force play a new role, in other words, to place it under its control," Qaouk said. "We hope that Europe and the French will not be under American control and will be the closest friends of the Lebanese and the Arab world."

More than 7,000 troops from EU countries will make up the backbone of an expanded UNIFIL presence in Lebanon, which is expected to total 15,000. Under Resolution 1701, they are deploying in south Lebanon, along with an equal number of Lebanese troops, as Israel progressively withdraws from the country.

Qaouk was speaking two days after the French commander of UNIFIL indicated his men would act to take weapons away from Hezbollah if the Lebanese army failed to do so.

Hezbollah will not give up its arms. There will be trouble over this rather soon I suspect.