SPANISH GENERAL ALBERTO ASARTA IS THE NEW COMMANDER OF THE UNITED NATIONS MISSION IN LEBANON.

On 9th December the secretary general of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, appointed Spanish General Alberto Asarta Cuevas to be commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (FINUL). General Asarta will take up the post on 28th January next in replacement of Italian General Claudio Graziano, who has held the post for three years. The appointment has followed the UNO secretary general’s notification to the Security Council, whose members raised no objection. At present, 29 countries participate in the FINUL mission with a total of 12,341 forces. Spain is the fourth contributing country with a force of 1,100 service personnel. The FINUL mission was created according to UNO Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 in order to supervise the redeployment of the Israeli forces from Lebanese territory and support the restoration of the Lebanese government’s authority in the territory. In 2006 the Security Council passed Resolution 1701 to put an end to the Israeli-Lebanese crisis that arose during the summer of that year. This resolution and subsequent prorogations authorised the increase in the FINUL Force to a maximum of 15,000 forces and extended the mission mandate. 
In addition to cease fire surveillance and redeployment of Israeli units to the south of the border, the new mandate puts FINUL in charge of support to the Lebanese Armed Forces to devise and assure its land and sea borders, avoid illicit arms traffic across the same and be deployed in the south of the country. 
General Asarta has participated in international missions in El Salvador, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Irak and Lebanon. I n the latter, General Asarta was commander of FINUL’s Multinational Brigade East from December 2008 until April 2009 and was in charge of over 4,200 forces from India, Indonesia, Nepal, Malaysia, Poland, El Salvador, China and Spain.