Peacekeeping

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations scrambled yesterday to assemble a peacekeeping force for Lebanon after an offer of only 200 troops from France, which is expected to lead the contingent. A handful of countries made firm commitments at a meeting where Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown asked for 3,500 troops who could arrive in south Lebanon within 10 days to augment the existing U.N. force of 2,000. Italy and Spain, who are expected to be Europe's largest contributors, said they must receive Cabinet approval before making specific offers.

WASHINGTON -- As diplomats talk about the prospects of a new multinational peacekeeping force to prevent further fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, a lesson or two can be drawn from the United Nations' multinational observer force of about 2,000 soldiers that is already there. The experience of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, has not been a good one. On the scene since 1978 and comprising soldiers from France, Poland, India, Italy and a few other countries, UNIFIL was unable to stop the July 12 Hezbollah border raid that resulted in the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- International pressure mounted on the Bush administration yesterday to call for an immediate cease-fire in the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to the region in search of a long-term solution to the 12-day-old conflict. With civilian casualties in Lebanon mounting, the United States' Arab allies added their voices to the calls for a truce. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, met with President Bush in the Oval Office and delivered a letter from King Abdullah II asking him to intervene.

JAWHAR, Somalia -- Islamist militias tightened their hold on southern Somalia yesterday by seizing control of a major strategic town, ousting a group of secular warlords in a brief, decisive battle just a week after driving them from the capital city of Mogadishu. The nation's transitional government, based in Baidoa, asked the African Union to deploy peacekeeping troops. The AU supports the transitional government but has not approved the deployment. The Islamic militants of the Islamic Courts Union have strongly opposed the presence of foreign troops in the country and threatened to halt talks with the transitional government if they sought AU help.

UNITED NATIONS -- The Security Council passed a resolution yesterday to accelerate transfer of control of an African Union force into a larger force led by the U.N. in Sudan's Darfur region. It threatened sanctions for violators of a recent peace agreement. The resolution is meant to jump-start a planned peacekeeping force of up to 20,000 U.N. soldiers that has been blocked by the Sudanese government. It also demands that Khartoum allow an assessment team of military experts into Darfur within one week.

UNITED NATIONS -- The world body's top envoy to Sudan said yesterday that al-Qaida has threatened him and any peacekeeping troops deployed there from outside Africa, after the Sudanese government's rejection of a pending United Nations force meant to protect civilians in the country's war-torn Darfur region. U.N. Special Envoy Jan Pronk said the government in Khartoum deeply distrusts foreign intervention and fears that the presence of a United Nations or NATO force would be the beginning of a foreign occupation such as those that have taken place in Afghanistan and Iraq.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Nearly 20 months after the United Nations arrived to stabilize the hemisphere's poorest country and avert a civil war, there is still no cease-fire in this violent city on the sea. Blasts from tanks and machine guns go on for hours almost every day around Cite Soleil, a steamy slum at the capital's northern edge. No one knows for sure how many civilians have been killed inside. Last week, two Jordanian soldiers were shot to death and one was seriously wounded in skirmishes with local gangs.

WASHINGTON - The leaders of 175 countries, including President Bush, will gather at the United Nations this week for a world summit intended to reform and reinvigorate the world organization to meet the threats and challenges of the new century. The occasion also should provide the leaders with the opportunity to address what has long been considered an Achilles heel of the international body, U.N. peacekeeping, which needs to be strengthened, not placed on the back burner. The recent report of a congressionally mandated task force on the United Nations, chaired by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, states that peacekeeping is "arguably, the most important U.N. activity designed to prevent and end conflict and build stable societies."

BRUSSELS, Belgium - NATO has decided to airlift African peacekeeping troops into Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the first mission for the Atlantic alliance in Africa, senior NATO and U.S. officials said yesterday. The decision follows months of stalemate in European capitals over whether NATO should become involved in Darfur, where an estimated 180,000 people have died from disease, hunger and fighting since a civil war began in 2003. A senior Pentagon official confirmed that U.S. airplanes would participate in the NATO mission, which could begin within weeks.

NAIROBI, Kenya - The United Nations, burdened by its inability to stave off the mass killings in Rwanda in 1994 and by failed missions in Bosnia and Somalia, is allowing its peacekeepers to mount some of the most aggressive operations in its history. The change has been evolving over the past decade, as the Security Council has adopted the notion of "robust peacekeeping" and rejected the idea that the mere presence of blue-helmeted soldiers on the ground helps quell combat. It is most obvious in Congo, which commands by far the largest deployment of U.N. troops in the world.