BEIRUT: The UN Security Council’s decision on Wednesday to extend the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) by another year “didn’t include any substantial modification to the mandate, as Washington had originally demanded,” a Lebanese official working with UNIFIL told Arab News.
But the resolution extending the mandate “asked UNIFIL to identify the areas it can’t enter and inform the UN,” the official said. The resolution asks the UN secretary-general “to look at ways to… increase UNIFIL’s visible presence, including through patrols and inspections, within its existing mandate and capabilities.”
A modification to the mandate demands that UNIFIL inform the Lebanese Army of any suspicious activities so the latter can investigate, the official said.
“If the suspicion concerns a public place, the army can enter and search it, but if it concerns a private place, it needs to seek the public prosecutor’s permission, which could take some time,” he added.
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, welcomed the new UNIFIL mandate and considered it “stronger than before.”
She said: “Conditions in south Lebanon are very dangerous today, and the clouds of war are gathering… The resolution demands that UNIFIL double its efforts to prevent the flow of arms and terrorists to the area.”
Last month, Haley said UNIFIL was not doing an effective job against Hezbollah, and the force’s commander, Gen. Michael Beary, showed a lack of understanding of the group’s activities.
A source close to UNIFIL said when Beary tried to deploy patrols, “Hezbollah responded with public protests, claiming that UNIFIL’s activities contradict UN Security Council resolution 1701.”
The source added: “The resolution presumes that the Lebanese Army accompanies UNIFIL patrols, but the army can’t cover 400 daily UNIFIL patrols, so Hezbollah considered the entry of UNIFIL patrols into private property a violation of resolution 1701.”
No major change to UNIFIL mandate
No major change to UNIFIL mandate
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
