Indonesia troop deployment to Lebanon delayed

Jakarta, Oct 16: Dispatch of Indonesian troops to Lebanon to join a United Nations peacekeeping mission has been postponed again, the country's military chief said today.

Indonesia had planned to send a 125-member advance team on Tuesday while the main body comprising 725 soldiers would leave at the end of the month.

Military commander Air Marshal Djoko Suyanto told reporters that the advance team was now expected to leave either on Oct 28 or 29.

''We hope there will be no more delays. The main body will follow after a week or two in early November,'' he said, adding that the delays came from the United Nations. He did not elaborate.

A military spokesman told reporters that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's army lieutenant son would be part of the advance team.

Yudhoyono is a retired army general who once led Indonesian military observers on a U N peacekeeping mission to Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

Israel had initially objected to peacekeepers coming from nations not recognising the Jewish state, but later relaxed that stance.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

The U N force, known as UNIFIL II, is being deployed in the south of Lebanon after a truce halted Israel's 34-day war with militant Islamic group Hizbollah on Aug 14.

The U N Security Council resolution that led to the truce called for 15,000 U N troops to join a similar number of Lebanese army soldiers in the south of the country.

Reuters