Italy seeks cut in Lebanon military presence

ROME: Italy is looking to reduce its peacekeeping contingent in Lebanon by nearly half, the defence minister said on Saturday, after six Italian soldiers were wounded in an attack on their convoy in the country's south.

Two of the six were seriously wounded when a bomb blew up a U.N. jeep near the southern port city of Sidon on Friday, the first attack of its kind in three years.

UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, was expanded to about 12,000 troops and naval personnel under U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 which halted the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in south Lebanon. Italy has the force's largest contingent.

UNIFIL operates alongside 15,000 Lebanese army troops who are deployed in the south to keep peace near the frontier with Israel and prevent weapons transfers in an area that is a stronghold of Hezbollah guerrillas.

Italy must scale back its contingent to 1,100 soldiers from the 1,780 it has at present in the U.N. force, Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa told La Repubblica newspaper in an interview published on Saturday.

"Italy does not have plans to leave the country," he said. "But this does not mean not seriously considering the option of reducing our military presence.

Today we have 1,780 soldiers in Lebanon, which is too much. Given that we no longer command the mission, we must go down to 1,100 men as soon as possible." Italy and Spain have asked for other countries to step in, he said.

Friday's attack prompted a senior member of the Northern League, a powerful ally in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition, to demand that Italy fully withdraw from the Lebanese peacekeeping mission.

La Russa excluded a unilateral withdrawal, but said a diplomatic push to get other countries involved must start.

He blamed a "terrorist" act by a Palestinian fringe group, and said the attack was not surprising, given rising tension in the area.

The southern Lebanese border has been generally quiet apart from occasional flare-ups. Ten Palestinian demonstrators were killed earlier this month when Israeli troops opened fire on a protest on the Lebanese side of the border, the Lebanese army and security sources said.

Copyright Reuters, 2011