UNIFIL leaks to Hizbullah worry IDF
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 10, 2008
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A day after two Katyusha rockets struck Shlomi in the Galilee, defense
officials raised concerns Wednesday that information they were regularly
passing on to UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) was also making its
way to Hizbullah.

According to the officials, the IDF regularly updates UNIFIL and the LAF on
its assessments concerning Hizbullah's military buildup in southern Lebanon.
Unconnected to those concerns, on Tuesday two 107-mm. Katyusha rockets
struck Shlomi. Defense officials said that an al-Qaida-inspired Palestinian
group was the prime suspect in the attack.

"This is a difficult scenario," one official in Jerusalem said. "On the one
hand, we count on UNIFIL and the LAF and therefore need to update them. On
the other hand, there is always a concern that the information we supply
them with will fall into the wrong hands."

As a result, the IDF is constantly debating the "depth" of the information
it is willing to share with UNIFIL and the LAF, out of fear that due to the
Lebanese Armed Forces connection, it will find its way to Hizbullah.

Overall, the officials stressed, the IDF had a very good working
relationship with UNIFIL, and OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot
spoke regularly with his UN counterpart, Italian Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano.

Last month diplomatic officials in Jerusalem reported major improvements in
UNIFIL's performance, saying the force had recently taken up positions on
bridges along the Litani River - the northern limit of its mandate - and was
successfully curbing the flow of weapons from northern Lebanon to the South.
Meanwhile Wednesday, the IDF raised its level of alert along the northern
border for several hours after several loud explosions were heard coming
from Lebanon. After contacting UNIFIL, the IDF was informed that the
peacekeeping force had decided to destroy several weapon caches it had
discovered. UNIFIL had forgotten to update the IDF.