PLA Daily 2007-02-25

　　On early morning of February 23, the field engineer battalion of the Chinese peacekeeping troops in Lebanon received an urgent message from the UN Peacekeeping Force Headquarters in Lebanon, asking to send a detachment to the Lebanon-Israel border to perform border survey and minesweeping mission.

　　At 08:00 o'clock, the fleet, made up of several multi-function minesweeping armored cars and jeeps carrying some 10 officers and men with full operational gear, sped out of the barracks towards Lebanon's southern border area.

　　After passing through a frontier defense checkpoint manned by the Lebanese government troops, the fleet arrived at the borderline strewed with barbed wire entanglements and monitoring cameras.

　　This is an area overgrown with weeds, where exposed anti-personnel and anti-tank mines could be seen here and there on the ground. Meanwhile hen-and-egg mines of duck egg size could be seen hanging on shrubs everywhere.

　　"Start passage-opening operation!" deputy battalion commander Nie sternly gave the order. "Bang! Bang!" along with the thunderous explosions in quick succession, a passage of one meter wide and some 20 to 30 meters long was opened up. Afterwards on this narrow and dangerous passage, the Chinese peacekeepers started to gingerly deal with one dangerous situation after another. Before long their camouflage uniforms were soaked with perspiration, and at this very moment the reporters found that the five-star red flag armbands on their arms were especially conspicuous.

　　By Sun Jilian and Tian Yuan