Indonesian deployment to Lebanon pushed back again

JAKARTA, Oct 26 (Reuters) Indonesia has had to delay sending troops to Lebanon to join a UN peacekeeping mission because of transport problems, a military spokesman said today.

A 125-member advance team had been due to leave at the weekend, with a main body comprising 725 soldiers following in early November.

''Yes, it has been delayed. The advance team will now leave on November 5 and the main body will follow after two weeks, roughly around November 22,'' military spokesman Rear Admiral Mohammad Sunarto told reporters.

''The reason is completely technical, related to transportation matters,'' he said.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's army lieutenant son would be part of the advance team.

Yudhoyono himself is a retired army general who once led Indonesian military observers on a UN 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 UN 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.

REUTERS DKB RN1541