Israel blamed for Lebanon cluster bombs

TYRE, Lebanon, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- The U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center expects to have southern Lebanon cleared of cluster bombs by the end of next year, officials said Wednesday.

Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the agency, blamed Israel for the slow progress, The Lebanon Star reported. The cluster bombs were dropped in 2006 during the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon aimed at Hezbollah.

"Israel refusing to provide us with maps of where it has dropped cluster bombs constitutes the main obstacle," she said at a news conference.

A British bomb expert was killed in Lebanon last week by an unexploded bomb.

Farran said searchers were still finding new bomb clusters because Israel continued to drop bombs in the 72 hours before a peace agreement took effect, hitting some areas several times. The mine agency says Israel dropped 4 million bomblets during the monthlong war.