France points finger at Syria for Lebanon attack
France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Sunday Paris believed Syria was behind attacks on its troops in Lebanon earlier this week.
A roadside bomb wounded five French peacekeepers in southern Lebanon Friday, in the third attack this year on United Nations forces deployed near the frontier with Israel.
“We have strong reason to believe these attacks came from there (Syria),” Juppe said on RFI radio. “We think it’s most probable, but I don’t have proof.”
France - with Britain, Germany and the United States - has been pushing for the U.N. Security Council to take up the issue of Syria again. In October, Russia and China vetoed a resolution that would have condemned Damascus’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and threatened possible sanctions.
Paris is now pushing for the creation of humanitarian corridors to provide aid to the population.
When asked if he believed Hezbollah had carried out the attack on behalf of Damascus, Juppe said: “Absolutely. It is Syria’s armed wing (in Lebanon).”
Friday’s bombing follows attacks in May and July against French and Italian peacekeepers and comes as the United Nations prepares a review of its 12,000-strong operation, which was beefed up after Israel’s 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006.
Juppe called on the Lebanese government to ensure the safety of peacekeepers in the country and said the review at the U.N. would assess the consequences of the attacks and redefine the objectives of the UNIFIL mission.