Other events in Baltic States

The Estonian unit of the Finnish-Irish Battalion serving in the United Nations interim force UNIFIL in Lebanon will be relieved by another unit this week, informs LETA/BNS.

A festive formation of ESTPLA-20, the infantry platoon about to head to Lebanon, will take place at the defense headquarters on Tuesday and the returning unit ESTPLA-19 will line up the next day, spokespeople for the Defense Ministry have said.

The infantry platoon formed mostly of members of the Scouts Battalion makes up the biggest part of the Estonian contingent going to Lebanon. More than a third of the soldiers have previous experience of military operations. The chief of the Estonian contingent is Maj. Kalle Kolli and the platoon leader is 2nd Lt. Priit Lillemets.

The unit's tasks are observation, patroling, manning of checkpoints, and peacekeeping operations in the course of which they will be working closely together with the armed forces of Lebanon.

Since May this year around 40 Estonian military have been serving in Lebanon.

At the end of October the government approved the Defense Ministry's proposal to extend until the end of next year the mandate for contributing up to 50 defense personnel to the UN-led peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.