Prince and PM comfort families of slain UN soldiers

26 June 2007

MADIRD – Spain’s Prince Felipe and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero joined the grieving families of six U.N. peacekeepers slain in a car bombing in Lebanon for the arrival of the bodies at an air base outside Madrid early Tuesday.

The bodies of the three Spaniards and three Colombians were flown out of Beirut on Monday evening and arrived in Spain shortly before 3 a.m. (0100 GMT). Defense Minister Jose Antonio Alonso, who flew to Lebanon following news of the attack, was on the flight.

The prince and prime minister were to attend a state funeral at an armed forces center on the outskirts of the Spanish capital at 12:30 p.m. (1030 GMT).

The Spanish army peacekeepers were patrolling the main road between the towns of Marjayoun and Khiam, a few kilometers north of the Israeli town of Metulla, when the bomb struck their armored personnel carrier Sunday. Two other soldiers were seriously wounded.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack but the anti-Syrian coalition in parliament blamed Damascus, despite its condemnation of the bombing.

Spain has 1,100 peacekeepers in Lebanon, part of the 13,000-member U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon from 30 countries, which first deployed in Lebanon in 1978 and was reinforced in the past year. UNIFIL, along with 15,000 Lebanese troops, patrols a zone along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

[Copyright AP with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news