Hezbollah uses UN posts as shields

OTTAWA - The words of a Canadian United Nations observer written just days before he was killed in an Israeli bombing of a UN post in Lebanon are evidence Hezbollah was using the post as a ''shield'' to fire rockets into Israel, says a former UN commander in Bosnia.

''What that means is, in plain English, 'We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the (Israeli Defence Forces),'' he said.

It's a tactic MacKenzie, who was the first UN commander in Sarajevo during the Bosnia civil war, said he's seen in past international missions: aside from UN posts, fighters would set up near hospitals, mosques and orphanages.

It's also one he would likely use if he was a ''belligerent'' and not a Canadian soldier, he said.

''The most important thing in combat these days, funnily enough, is not to win the firefight but to win the information battle and the PR battle,'' he said.

Jewish World Review June 2, 2004 / 13 Sivan, 5764

The ambulances-for-terrorists scandal

By Michelle Malkin

GOTCHA! Terrorists caught using UN ambulances Should we be surprised? (You can access video below)

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | The United Nations and Red Cross have been providing cover for terrorists — literally. And American taxpayers are footing some of the bill.

Last week, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Palestinian gunmen used the UNRWA emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers in Gaza City on May 11. The footage shows two ambulances with flashing lights pull onto a street. Shots and shouts ring out during the nighttime raid. A gang of militants piles into one of the supposedly neutral ambulances, clearly marked "U.N." with the agency's blue flag flying from the roof, which then speeds away from the scene.

AccessMiddleEast.org, a nonprofit global news monitoring service, posted the video (shot by a Reuters TV cameraman) on its Web site last week. To date, Access Middle East managing director Richard Bardenstein in Israel informs me, not a single U.S. television news station has expressed interest in showing the footage to American viewers.

Why should we care? Because since 1950, the U.S. has provided UNRWA with $2.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies — about one-third of the relief agency's total budget. And because instead of investigating this latest black eye-inducing scandal, the U.N. is blasting American troops for defending themselves against such outrageous tactics — now being emulated by Iraqi guerrilla warriors sniping at our men and women from ambulances in Fallujah.

International relief officials are in stubborn denial about the abuse of their emergency vehicles and hospital credentials by terrorists. They claim the videotaped May 11 ambulance-assisted attack was an isolated incident and that the driver was forced to transport the gunmen. But this ambulances-for-terrorists program has been going on for years. And "humanitarian" workers have been willing collaborators.

According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (CSS), senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official U.N. vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives, and terrorists to and from attacks. He was in charge of distributing food supplies to Palestinian refugees. Nidal 'Abd al-Fataah 'Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and admitted he had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists.

U.N. vehicles aren't the only ones being used by terrorists. An intensive care ambulance carrying the acronym of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was used to deliver an explosive belt found underneath a stretcher on which a sick child was lying in spring 2002. Female suicide bomber Wafa Idris, who blew herself up in a January 2002 attack in Jerusalem, was a medical secretary for the PRCS. Her recruiter was an ambulance driver for the same organization. PRCS receives financial support from governments and organizations around the world, including the American Red Cross and International Committee of the Red Cross.

The UNRWA has long been suspected of providing aid and comfort to terrorists. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, recently documented how "buildings and warehouses under UNRWA supervision are allegedly being used as storage areas for Palestinian ammunition and counterfeit currency factories." Cantor's 2002 report also noted that UNRWA hosts summer camps in martyrdom for young terrorists-in-training. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., has also lobbied for increased scrutiny of UNRWA funding, which has been used to publish anti-Semitic textbooks and posters in schools that "glorify homicide bombers and the slaughter of innocents."

Moreover, according to Rep. Smith, a UNRWA school hosted a Hamas rally by a key Hamas leader in July 2001 and another UNRWA employee praised homicide bombers, proclaiming: "The road to Palestine passes through the blood of the fallen, and these fallen have written history with parts of their flesh and their bodies."

While jihadists gain shelter in its emergency vehicles, the U.N. continues to lambaste the U.S. for assorted wartime "atrocities." Not one more American dime should go to fund the bloody self-righteousness of the world's most generous terrorist relief organization.

Jewish World Review March 2, 2004 / 9 Adar, 5764

Stop terrorists' vehicle of choice

By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

BUSTED! Israelis capture an Arab 'ambulance bomb'

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | How should democracies like the U.S. and Israel respond to terrorist attacks that use ambulances loaded with explosives?

Terrorists deliberately employ these protected vehicles for two reasons: to fool those whose job it is to prevent acts of terrorism and — the more long-range reason — to provoke the democracies into violating human rights laws by stopping real ambulances and people in medical need.

This pattern appears to be spreading. In October, an ambulance was used to blow up a Red Cross headquarters in Iraq. In January, an ambulance blew up a Baghdad hotel. Also in January, a woman feigning injury blew up four Israelis at a checkpoint. In several other instances, ambulances carrying explosives were stopped by Israeli officials before they could do any damage.

These ploys exploit the sympathy of decent security guards toward sick civilians. Equally cruel and cynical, the terrorists deliberately seek to increase the suffering of their own people by having them subjected to cumbersome security checks during real medical emergencies.

Human rights groups and international organizations play into the terrorists' hands by condemning democracies for violating international law whenever they delay real ambulances. In this so-called cycle of violence, the interference with medical care generates more resentment and more suicide bombings.

But in reality, it is anything but an actual cycle. It is a deliberate ploy. The terrorists increase the suffering of their own people and then exploit it to encourage more terrorists and more condemnation of the victims of terrorism. It is a cycle, but it is caused entirely by the calculated actions of the terrorists.

Some who sympathize with the terrorists are outraged (or at least pretend outrage) at the suggestion that terrorist leaders would deliberately devise a strategy that subjects their own people — especially sick people and children — to delays and searches. But that is the reality of terrorism.

Why then do the democracies fall into this trap? What else could they do but subject all suspicious ambulances, people seeking medical assistance and children to searches? Even when the net is cast narrowly, it will inevitably catch innocent people.

In 2002, the Supreme Court of Israel confronted the issue of how a democracy deals with terrorists who use ambulances and hospitals to facilitate terrorism. It ruled that the Israeli military must abide by the letter of the law, even though it will increase Israel's casualties.

Terrorist leaders have exploited this humane ruling and similar ones by American authorities by increasing their use of ambulances. This exploitation will end only when human rights groups focus their criticism on terrorists rather than on democracies that properly stop ambulances that may well contain explosives.

U.N. Admits Bungling Mideast Video

NewsMax.com Wires

Saturday, Aug. 4, 2001

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations on Friday admitted "mistakes made" in handling an Israeli request for a videotape made after the capture of three of its soldiers last year. It said the blunders resulted from "lapses in judgment and failures in communication, not from conspiracies."

The whole incident has proven extremely embarrassing for the United Nations, which had denied from regional to the highest levels of the world organization to the highest officials in Israel the very existence of the tape. It turns out there were at least two tapes in U.N. possession.

Undersecretary-General for Management Joseph Connor was told by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate the bungling and, after handing Annan the report Thursday, was ordered to brief the Security Council and reporters Friday. During the course of the inquiry the existence of two additional videotapes was revealed. The third is a clip that was shown on Lebanon TV, and is not in U.N. possession.

"The investigation team is convinced on the basis of the evidence that it has seen and heard that the mistakes made followed from lapses in judgment and failures in communication, not from conspiracies or mala fides [bad faith]," the report said.

Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said: "It is clear that serious errors of judgment were made, in particular by those who failed to convey information to the Israelis which would have been helpful in an assessment of the condition of the three abducted soldiers. The secretary-general regrets this error."

Annan repeated his offer to show to the governments of Israel and Lebanon an edited version of the videotape made on Oct. 8, the day after the abduction.

"He now extends this offer to cover the videotape of Oct. 7, which the investigation has uncovered, and is also willing to show these two governments items recovered from the vehicles which may have a bearing on the condition of the soldiers," Eckhard said. "The report also reveals serious shortcomings in internal communications within the United Nations, and the way procedures for handling sensitive information are applied."

The second newly uncovered video recording comprised "a videotape clip that accompanied a Lebanese television bulletin apparently shown on July 15," the report said. "It shows images of the recovery operation filmed Oct. 8 and also purports to show still photographs of Hezbollah fighters during the abduction incident itself."

The United Nations does not have possession of that tape, and the investigation team "is unaware of any other videotape of the incidents."

"The secretary-general will now take administrative measures, including measures to tighten up these procedures, with a view to ensuring that such lapses in assessment and communication - within the U.N. chain of command and between the United Nations and member governments - do not recur." Eckhard said.

Ambassador Yehuda Lancry of Israel told reporters his nation welcomes the report.

He said it would accept Annan's invitation to view the unedited Oct. 7 videotape, the edited Oct. 8 videotape and the items recovered from the vehicles. He expects experts to arrive at U.N. headquarters to "scrutinize" the material "in some days."

"We are totally convinced of the good faith of the secretary-general," he said.

"I would like to express our satisfaction about Connor's report," Lancry said. "We consider that the work of this commission has been done in a serious and deep and vigorous way and that this commission was able to identify grave dysfunctions and failures inside the system and pointed out these dysfunctions and from the Israeli point of view we welcome the report."

The brouhaha began with the abandonment of Hezbollah positions as reported by U.N. military observers, Connor's report said. That was followed by a Palestinian demonstration and attempt to cross the border from Lebanon into Israel. Three people were killed and about 20 injured by Israeli gunfire.

That was followed by a bombardment at an Israeli border point, the Sheba Pond Road Gate, about two miles south of Shebaa village. Three Israeli soldiers had just arrived in a Jeep on a "regular routine inspection" shortly after 1:30 p.m. local time on a sunny Saturday, the report said. When the dust settled, the Jeep was on fire and the soldiers were gone. Two vehicles previously seen nearby also were missing.

The two vehicles, a white Nissan Pathfinder and a dark blue Range Rover, were found a few hours later about 100 yards apart abandoned, but their engines running, at the side of the road, near Kafar Hamam, about four miles from the attack, the report said. They were not U.N. vehicles.

A contingent from an Indian battalion of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon was dispatched to recover the cars the following day and ordered to videotape the operation.

Imitation UNIFIL number plates, a U.N. flag, a false antenna and U.N. stickers were found inside the Pathfinder, some of them bloodied, along with three explosive devices, the report said.

Connor told reporters at the briefing it was not believed that the items were used because the sticky side of the stickers was unused and there was a lack of body odor on some apparel. He said in all, 53 items were taken from the two vehicles before they were towed off by UNIFIL. Seven items with bloodstains, including a car floor mat and a belt, were brought to U.N. headquarters in New York.

In his statement, Eckhard said, "The secretary-general wishes once more to express his indignation at the use of United Nations equipment and insignia in the abduction. He regards this as a very serious matter, which he continues to pursue with the government of Lebanon."

Still 35 mm images and digital photographs were taken of the vehicles and contents and an Indian soldier videotaped vehicles and contents.

"An unknown civilian cameraman also appeared later with a video camera and apparently his presence was not questioned by UNIFIL personnel," the report said. It was noted in attempting to explain the existence of the Oct. 7 tape, that an unidentified cameraman was present Oct. 8.

"Armed Hezbollah personnel stopped the convoy" towing the Nissan and Range Rover and "demanded that the vehicles be handed over.

After an hour's confrontation, they were surrendered, "under instruction from the [UNIFIL] commander," Maj. Gen. Seth Kofi Obeng "in order to defuse an armed confrontation and possible loss of life," the report said. "The handing over was videotaped by the Indian battalion. There is no mention of the recovery or the videotape in UNIFIL's daily situation report."

However, the Connor report said, "various peacekeepers wrote several reports on both aspects." The tape was brought to headquarters at Naqoura, Lebanon.

"Gen. Obeng spoke to the director of Asia and Middle East Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, [Joachim] Hutter, about the abduction of the Israeli soldiers, the United Nations items recovered and the surrender of the vehicles," the report said. "He also mentioned that the events were captured on videotape. The director [Hutter] does not recall mention of a videotape during this conversation."

Said the report, "There is no mention of the videotape in any written communication from UNIFIL to headquarters until July 9."

When Israel learned of the videotape, it requested a copy. Officials in the world organization, including Annan, denied there was any until last month. Israel said it wanted to see the tape to help determine the fate of the three soldiers.

The United Nations did not want to hand over an unedited recording because it could provide Israeli intelligence with a way of identifying the Hezbollah members who blocked the U.N. recovery operation, leaving it open to charges of complicity with Israel. There have been similar mutterings about the U.N. helping Hezbollah.

"The investigation team therefore concludes that the United Nations did not deliberately mislead the Israeli government," Connor's report said. "Internal U.N. communications were faulty and inadequate.

"The discovery of U.N. items in the vehicles used during the abduction is also a matter of serious concern," it said. "This is in contravention of international law and places the lives of U.N peacekeepers in Lebanon at risk."

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