Bunker Busting in Lebanon Continues

I had commented on Israeli forces discovering bunkers in South Lebanon yesterday, including one within a stone's throw of a UNIFIL outpost. From Israel with Love has a great deal more on the bunkers uncovered and destroyed by Israel since their return to South Lebanon was necessitated by Hizbullah's war begun a month ago.

Bryan at Hotair added a link to a clip of the bunkers inside: Sky News went into a Hezbollah bunker along with the IDF. The scale of construction on this particular bunker/tunnel complex is immense. The reporter notes that it had a sense of permanence about it–the walls were painted, there was a kitchen and what the IDF says were bomb-making materials. And the whole complex was within a couple hundred yards of a UN post. And there’s another smaller bunker within about 20 yards of a UN post.

Let me repeat that last part. One of these Hizbullah bunkers was about 20 yards away from a UNIFIL outpost. That's not only a stone's throw away, but can explain why Israeli fire appeared to be directed at UNIFIL outposts and why Hizbullah chose those locations in the first place. They were crawling all over UNIFIL outposts, and raises many uncomfortable questions for UNIFIL officials:

1) What did they know of Hizbullah operations around their outposts in the five plus years from 2000 through 2006 - the time coinciding with Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon?

2) Was UNIFIL aware of Hizbullah bunker construction throughout South Lebanon, especially within meters of UNIFIL outposts despite explicit UN SCRs that required all militias to be disbanded and to secure Lebanon's territorial integrity?

3) Did UNIFIL do anything to stop Hizbullah, and if it didn't, what was the reason given for not fulfilling the UNIFIL mandate pursuant to UN SCR 425, 426, and 1559?

4) Has any investigation been undertaken by the Secretariat to determine whether UNIFIL was compromised by Hizbullah or its terror masters in Tehran or Syria to obscure or prevent disclosure of Hizbullah's operations in Lebanon?

4a) Will any investigation be launched into UNIFIL's actions in the period before, during, and after the Hizbullah war of 2006?

5) Will anyone in UNIFIL, let alone the Secretariat, be held responsible for the failures of UNIFIL to deal with Hizbullah throughout the period when UNIFIL operated in South Lebanon?

I already know the answer to 5. The answer is no. There will be no one held responsible for UNIFIL's failures, and all the misery, death, and destruction caused by the failure of UNIFIL to deal with Hizbullah's presence and militarization of South Lebanon right under UNIFIL's nose.

Others are asking just how UNIFIL could not have noticed all this construction ongoing right in front of their positions, including Jeff Goldstein and his readers. Did they have blinders on? Or were they simply looking the other way as Hizbullah militarized the area in preparation for a war of their choosing.