The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon will deploy troops at four points along the Lebanese border with Israel after receiving the go-ahead from Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a UNIFIL statement said Saturday.
UNIFIL experts and their Lebanese counterparts have been meeting for the past week to eliminate Israeli violations of the "blue line," which the UN drew to mark Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon in May, which ended a 22-year occupation.
A UNIFIL spokesman said Friday that the UN force had been deployed in south Lebanon, but the Lebanese government, which needed to authorize such a move, had not announced a deployment.
The Saturday statement said "redeployment of UNIFIL troops to the border in four different locations will take place tomorrow (Sunday) morning."
It said the "decision to give the go-ahead to UNIFIL to redeploy was given today by President Emile Lahoud, following the results of consultations" between Gen Maher Tufaili, the Lebanese government coordinator to UNIFIL, and the UNIFIL commander, Major-General Seth Kofi Obeng – BEIRUT (AFP)
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