Illegal Lebanon arms may have been Hezbollah's - U.N.

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping chief has said there are signs an illegal weapons stockpile that exploded last week in southern Lebanon belonged to the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hezbollah.

In a speech delivered behind closed doors to the Security Council on Thursday, U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy also said that some of the people who tried to prevent U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from investigating the site were Hezbollah members dressed in civilian clothes.

"A number of indications suggest that the depot belonged to Hezbollah, and, in contrast to previous discoveries by UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces of weapons and ammunition, that it was not abandoned but, rather, actively maintained," he told the 15-nation council in the speech, obtained by Reuters.

He said the mere presence of such arms south of the Litani River represented a "serious violation of resolution 1701."

Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, banned all unauthorised weapons between the Litani River and the Blue Line, the U.N.-monitored border between Israel and Lebanon.

Hezbollah is backed by Iran and Syria.

The weapons at the site of the explosion were from various countries and included mortars, AK-47s, artillery shells and 122mm rockets, Le Roy said.