Changing the mandate of UN forces in southern Syria
Beirut- The UN Security Council is expected to discuss a proposal put forth by Jordan and signed off on by the United States and Russia that calls for amending the mandate of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in Syria, giving its troops the right to carry arms and use them in defending territory in southern Syria.
Since its deployment on the Syrian-Israeli border after the October War of 1973, UNDOF’s job was to monitor the region and record violations between Syria and Israel. That is no longer enough, however, as several non-state players such as Hezbollah; Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria; and the Khaled Ibn Al Walid Army, an affiliate of the Islamic State (ISIS), are thriving on the border area.
The United Nations is becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of security in the border area, topped off by the kidnapping of its troops in autumn 2014. Most UNDOF troops have withdrawn to Israel and only returned to the Syrian side of the border last December.
The idea is to transform UNDOF’s mission — without saying it bluntly — from monitoring the Syrian-Israeli border into policing it militarily with firepower. Ultimately UNDOF would be tasked with keeping al-Nusra, ISIS and Hezbollah away from the safe zone that the Americans want to carve out on the Syrian borders.
This zone, recently signed off on by Amman, Washington and Moscow, would be similar to the one created by the Turks on the northern border last summer. The hope is that it would protect the Jordanian side from non-state players and be used to relocate more than 1.4 million Syrian refugees living in Jordan since 2011.
http://www.thearabweekly.com/article/8725/Changing%20the%20mandate%20of%20UN%20forces%20in%20southern%20Syria
