A ceasefire was declared in Lebanon early on Wednesday, with US involvement in securing the deal [Getty/file photo]
The US military has appointed Major General Jasper Jeffers to oversee the implementation of the Washington-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon, which took effect in the early hours of Wednesday, CENTCOM announced.
The head of the Special Operations Command Central will carry out his mission alongside US Special envoy Amos Hochstein, who helped broker the truce between Israel and Hezbollah over the past few weeks.
Jeffers arrived in in the Lebanese capital earlier this week as part of his mission to monitor the ceasefire’s implementation, CENTCOM said.
He met with Lebanese armed forces commander Joseph Aoun on Friday, where they discussed the coordination mechanism between the involved parties in the south, the Lebanese army said, as cited by the The New Arab’s Arabic-language site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
The cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah will be chaired by the United States and include the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the Israeli army, the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), as well as France.
The New Arab takes a look at the US army’s appointee for monitoring the ceasefire.
Who is Jasper Jeffers?
Jasper Jeffers’ military career began in 1996, after he graduated from Virginia Tech, where he was assigned as an infantry officer. His first assignment was as a rifle platoon commander and operations officer in the 4-31st Infantry Regiment in Fort Drum, New York State.
Jeffers then went on to serve as a platoon leader and executive officer with the 1st Battalion, 75th Infantry Regiment, at Fort Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.
He then climbed the US military ranks by serving as a company commander and air operations officer with 1-5 Infantry Regiment, 1/25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Fort Lewis, Washington.
He also held various command positions, including troop, squadron commander and deputy brigade commander at the US Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
International deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq
Jeffers’ mission in Lebanon is far from his first military-related deployment in the Middle East. The Major General had participated in the US-led invasion and war in Iraq in 2003, serving as a company commander and air operations officer with 2nd Battalion, 75th Infantry Regiment.
He was also positioned in Afghanistan as advisor to the commander of Operation Resolute Support, a NATO military mission in the country.
He then went on to lead a brigade within the US Army Special Operations Command, deployed to support Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, the US-led campaign against the Islamic State group in those countries.
All eyes will be on Lebanon in the coming weeks and Jeffers’ efforts. Hezbollah, which has suffered a number of significant losses amid its conflict with Israel, said it would coordinate closely with the Lebanese army to implement the ceasefire deal.
Israel, however, warned that it would strike the group should it violate the truce, and said it will “act with full freedom” in Lebanon.
The ceasefire deal entails a number of conditions, notably the complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from south Lebanon, the deployment of the Lebanese army to the country’s south and Hezbollah moving away to the north of the Litani river.
Efforts, however, have been complicated by the continuing presence of Israeli troops on Lebanese territory. Additionally, both Hezbollah and the Israeli army have accused each other of violating the ceasefire deal since.
Nearly 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces since the conflict began in October last year, one day after Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza. The death toll in Lebanon increased rapidly after Israel turned the low-level conflict into a full onslaught in September this year.
