United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

United Nations peacekeepers extended their presence into the troubled western region of East Timor on Friday in a effort to rid the area of the armed militias that have wrought havoc for the past month. The peacekeeping force sent 700 soldiers into East Timor's wild west, where the instability has continued in part because the area abuts the Indonesian province of West Timor, which militias have used as a base. Since the first elements of the Australian-led force arrived in East Timor on Sept.

Australian peacekeepers repelled an ambush Wednesday, killing two anti-independence militiamen in the first clash since arriving more than two weeks ago. The violence came on the same day that Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo received a joyful welcome home.

Australian Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, the commander of peacekeepers in East Timor, on Thursday proposed establishment of a buffer zone along the border with West Timor to prevent further clashes between his troops and Indonesian forces. Relations between the peacekeepers and Indonesian forces were strained by a gun battle Sunday along the border separating Indonesian-controlled West Timor from East Timor, which recently voted for independence from Indonesia.

Six U.N. military observers and their translator were taken hostage as they were delivering aid in Georgia's breakaway territory of Abkhazia. Negotiators were in contact with the abductors, and Interior Minister Kakha Targamadze said on television that "there are special units there which are able to perform the operation of liberating the hostages, but we are doing everything possible to avoid bloodshed." Officials said the kidnappers were seeking $200,000 in ransom.

Gen. Klaus Reinhardt of Germany took command of the 50,000-strong Kosovo peacekeeping force Friday. British Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson handed over control of the multinational force, known as KFOR, to Reinhardt in a ceremony that underscored Germany's increasing willingness to cast off postwar reticence and assume a higher military profile within the NATO alliance. Reinhardt, 58, did not specifically refer to his own country's Nazi past.

Indonesian troops here were placed on high alert Tuesday in anticipation of a U.N. Security Council vote creating an Australian-led peacekeeping force for East Timor, Western military sources said.

In the mile-high mountains above East Timor's capital, amid thick forests and craggy ravines, 40,000 refugees have waited for nearly a month in resignation, wondering if it will ever again be safe for them to go home. They can see the city of Dili far below them, spread out on a plain by the sea. And off to the east, they can see a towering statue of Jesus Christ, his arms spread as though in welcome to the nine gray Australian warships on the smooth turquoise water.

Ethiopia will withdraw its troops from Eritrean territory to allow U.N. peacekeepers to patrol a buffer zone on the disputed border, the United Nations said. U.N. special envoy Legwaila Joseph Legwaila said Ethiopia's withdrawal will be completed by Feb. 26. Eritrean forces will be redeployed to the edge of the 15-mile buffer zone--which lies inside Eritrea--by March 3, he said. A two-year border war between the neighbors ended with the signing of a peace deal in December.

Bosnian Croats stoned NATO peacekeepers, overturned vehicles and attacked employees of international organizations Friday after police and troops seized a major bank used by Bosnian Croat nationalists seeking to form their own ministate. Twenty-one peacekeepers--including two Americans--were slightly injured in the melee in the southern city of Mostar, NATO spokesman Lt. Lars Anderson said. The others injured were from Italy, France, Spain and Morocco, he said.

The bodies of nine slain Bangladeshi peacekeepers began their journey home from eastern Congo. As bagpipes played, soldiers loaded the coffins into the back of a United Nations cargo plane at an airstrip ringed by U.N. and Bangladeshi flags flying at half-staff. Militiamen in the volatile Ituri district ambushed the soldiers on Friday. Some Congolese said the killings should spur the international community to send more soldiers.