On the 26th of July a roadside bomb hit a French UNIFIL convoy and injured 6 soldiers.
Part of an Italbatt logisitic convoy of the UNIFIL I caught on my way to Sidon in summer 2010 (credits: Olivier Jacquemet)
The convoy was supposedly trageted by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) near Sidon (outside the UNIFIL zone) along the highway, often used by the UNIFIL on its journeys between Beirut (where the UNIFIL can benefit from the International Airport and the sea port) and its area of operations in South Lebanon.
The UNIFIL area of operations in South Lebanon (credits: stratfor)
Over the recent years, the UN forces have been targetted several times. In May 2010, six Italian soldiers were injured in an explosion that targetted their vehicle. During summer 2010, the Shiite armed and political movement Hezbollah had apparently incited population of South Lebanon villages to throw stones at UNIFIL patrols. At the same period, the UN reported that several of its patrols had been blocked by civilians and their laptops, cameras and GPS equipement seized (report by the Secretary General of the UN on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701: S/2010/352).
The UN force is unable to fully carry out its mandate such as investigating weapons caches. Indeed, the legal conditions allowing the investigations of private properties are restrictive, the use of force (even if non-lethal) or coercion to perform patrols, deployments or investigations operations is extremely dangerous in a volatile security context. However, its presence hinders the Hezbollah, who perceives it as an obstacle to the organisation of its defence network or, sometimes, as a body gathering intelligence that could end-up in Israeli hands.
