UN Council delays vote on Sierra Leone force due to lack of troops

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 19 (Reuters) -- The Security Council has delayed a vote on increasing the peacekeepers in Sierra Leone because not enough countries have offered troops for the turbulent West African nation, U.N. officials said on Tuesday.

Instead the council intends to vote on Wednesday on a "rollover" resolution extending the mission on the same terms until October 31.

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The U.N. Mission in Sierra Leone, known as UNAMSIL, was authorised by the Security Council in October 1999 as a 6,000-member force. It was successively increased to a strength of 13,000 -- making it the biggest U.N. field operation.

The council was considering a British resolution to raise this figure to 20,500.

But U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said not enough countries were prepared to commit troops.

"The secretary general wants to make sure he has all the troop contributors lined up," Eckhard said. "That is not yet the case. He does not yet have them."

Without firm offers to field such an enormous mission, the council agreed to a U.N. request and put off a vote until Annan consults with more potential troop contributors, he said.

Annan was adhering to recommendations in a recent major report on U.N. peacekeeping that proposed the council not authorise missions or increases in troops until he had firm commitments from contribution nations as well as back up staff and equipment.

In a related development, a Security Council mission to evaluate the troubled operation is expected to go to the region October 7-14, council diplomats reported.

About seven envoys, including British ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock, might also go to Bamako, the capital of Mali, whose president Alpha Oumar Konare, is chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, known as ECOWAS.

The mission, according to one council member, is expected to review all aspects of the Sierra Leone operation -- a court to be set up to try rebel leaders, a ban on diamond sales that have fuelled the conflict, and the effectiveness of the peacekeeping venture.

Annan, in an August report on Sierra Leone, said there had been "a serious lack of cohesion within the mission as well as a number of other shortcomings."

There was no commonly shared understanding of the mandate and rules of engagement, and there were other problems of command and control, he said.

Some contingents were "insufficiently prepared to deal with the difficult environment and logistic challenges on the ground" in spite of extensive briefings.

"Some military units showed a lack of training and others had serious shortfalls in equipment. Essential military support units were lacking, in spite of attempts to find member states willing to make such units available," he said.

Annan said an important cause of these shortcomings was the "fast growth of the mission from a small team of military observers to a large multidisciplinary peacekeeping operation" with complex organisational and logistical requirements.

In May, in violation of a July 1999 peace accord, rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) took about 500 U.N. peacekeepers hostage for several weeks and stripped many of them of their weapons and equipment.

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