Word: hizballah
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...With Hizballah adopting a low profile, UNIFIL has closely eyed the growing threat in Lebanon posed by groups inspired by Al-Qaeda. Graziano admitted that UNIFIL regularly receives warnings of imminent attacks, but "the level of credibility of the warning is not always very high". There was no prior warning, however, to the June 24 car bomb attack against an armored patrol of Spanish peacekeepers. The remote-controlled explosion knocked an armored personnel carrier (APC) off the road, killing six soldiers in what a Western military officer familiar with the investigation said was an "extraordinarily sophisticated" operation...
Sources tell TIME that, since the attack, there have been discreet contacts between some UNIFIL contingents and Hizballah representatives. UNIFIL is supposed to confine liaison to the Lebanese army, and Graziano said that direct contacts between UNIFIL troops and Hizballah, or any other Lebanese political party, was "highly forbidden". But keeping some type of contact may be critical to UNIFIL's mission. The goal of the informal communications is partly to harness Hizballah's local intelligence gathering abilities, but also to ensure that the powerful Shi'ite group remains supportive of UNIFIL. The unspoken fear among some peacekeepers is that...
Nonetheless, a Hizballah official in south Lebanon confirmed to TIME that there was at least one meeting between Spanish UNIFIL officers and Hizballah representatives after the bomb attack. Furthermore, Hizballah officials have met with Spanish diplomats in Beirut and the Madrid government is believed to have held talks with Iran, Hizballah's patron, on the safety of its peacekeepers. At least one other European contingent enjoys regular direct contact with Hizballah, finessing Graziano's order by using a civilian advisor who was hired outside the UNIFIL framework...
...thermal imaging equipment to watch over UNIFIL bases, the border and remote areas, freeing up troops for force protection and rapid reaction duties. He even hopes to receive reconnaissance drones. The French battalion is equipped with pilotless drones, although they have not been employed due to objections by Hizballah, which suspects that any intelligence gathered by UNIFIL's drones could fall into the hands of its enemies. "I would like to have this [drone] capability, but just for protection of our units and not for gathering information," Graziano said...
...until the U.N. greenlights the new surveillance equipment, UNIFIL had better ensure it maintains good relations with Hizballah...