01:04 | UN reports US Marines caught cutting fence between Iraq and Kuwait
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
UN peacekeepers recently spotted armed US Marines cutting a fence between Kuwait and Iraq, an act reported to the Security Council Thursday as a possible violation of international law.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said peacekeepers monitoring a demilitarized zone set up after the 1991 Gulf War reported "numerous violations," since March 4 "by personnel in civilian clothes in 4x4 vehicles, at least some of whom were armed and identified themselves as US Marines."
US diplomats had no immediate comment.
According to Eckhard, peacekeepers observed three breaches that had been cut in an electric fence that Kuwait erected after Iraqi troops were forced out of the country by a US-led coalition in 1991.
Eckhard said the UN team raised the recent violations with the Kuwaiti government and the UN peacekeeping department then notified the Security Council. He said the breach may violate the Security Council resolution that set up the zone.
The United States has amassed more than 300,000 troops in the region in preparation for another possible war with Iraq. In the meantime, it is pushing council members to adopt a new resolution that would authorize military force, as it did in 1991.
