Lebanon force takes shape at UN

Lebanese troops are welcomed by civilians upon their arrival at the Lebanese village of Shebaa yesterday. Lebanese troops pressed their historic deployment to Hezbollah's longtime bastion in the south, taking up positions in the heavily bombed border town of Khiam and other villages. PHOTO: AFP

The vanguard force is charged with policing a fledgling ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel after a month of fighting and will be followed by the full deployment of 15,000 peacekeepers as agreed under a UN-brokered ceasefire.

Initial plans for a French-led force stalled over concerns about its rules of engagement, but Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown said that many issues appeared to have been overcome in talks Thursday.

"I think we're in business," he said after winding up talks between dozens of member states to thrash out the force's scope and composition.

"We've had a lot of interesting offers this afternoon, some fairly firm, some conditional on seeing the rules of engagement and the concept of operations," he said.

"The show's on the road, we're in business, but there's a lot of work to be done in the coming days to meet the deadline that we insisted on in this meeting, which is that we have 3,500 additional troops deployed within 10 days."

While he declined to offer the number of countries involved or troops pledged, other UN sources said that at least six nations had given firm offers, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Denmark and Germany.

France earlier said it would offer some 200 troops -- far short of the large commanding role that many had foreseen.

While insisting that the vanguard force would have to be on the ground in 10 days, Malloch Brown was less upbeat about the likelihood of such a deployment, when asked how feasible the deadline was.

"I don't want to give you an instant answer, we've got to follow up on this... The issue is which battalions can we get there in the timeline required, are they the right battalions with the right skills and equipment."

"We have to have 3,500 troops on the ground in 10 days... This deployment of 3,500 is very, very important," he added.

Much of the concern expressed by member states surrounded the force's rules of engagement when it deploys to the southern region, a traditional stronghold for Hezbollah, amid concerns of confrontation with the Shia group.

"Very much the issue is under what circumstances our troops have to engage in hostile offensive activities," Malloch Brown said.

"This is a prudently designed rules of engagement which is not offensive in character but does call on you to robustly use force if it's necessary," he said.

"If (small groups) do not voluntarily disarm when confronted by our troops and if they try to forcefully resist disarmament we will indeed employ force ourselves to disarm them," he added.

He further warned that any delay to the force's deployment threatened the four-day old ceasefire, saying: "Every moment we delay is a moment of risk that the fighting could re-erupt."