Roundup: UN Security Council members call for measures against asymmetrical attacks on peacekeepers

After a recent increase in fatal asymmetrical attacks on United Nations (UN) peacekeepers, UN Security Council members Monday called for efforts to protect them and improve the capabilities of peacekeeping operations in face of modern violent extremism and terrorism.

They made the appeal in a debate held after one Togolese peacekeeper was killed and seven others wounded, three of them seriously, in an attack on a UN peacekeeping convoy Sunday in the north of Mali.

UN peacekeeping operations have increasingly faced asymmetrical safety threats from violent extremist and terrorist groups, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said.

In response, he believed the United Nations needs to enhance the capabilities of peacekeeping operations and have a deeper understanding of the operating environment, calling for specific and preventive measures to ensure the safety and security of UN peacekeepers.

UN data showed a total of 129 peacekeepers were killed in 2015, and 69 killed in the first eight months of this year.

Michaelle Jean, secretary-general of the International Organization of the Francophonie, said that "the threats are constant."

UN peacekeepers should have more agile and robust capabilities in their operations so as to protect themselves at the same time, Jean said.

To this end, it is also necessary to seek effective, multilateral cooperation with the host country and regional organizations, she said.

Foreign Minister Mankeur Ndiaye of Senegal, this month's chair of the security council, stressed the need for the United Nations to adapt the peacekeeping operation to the environment to ensure its effectiveness, saying asymmetrical threats, whether from terrorism or organized transnational crime, are serious.

Noting the importance of modern capabilities, particularly in the intelligence sector, he said coordination with international counter-terrorism efforts is crucial.

"We must review the capacity of peacekeeping operations to carry out their mandates" and "the existing capabilities of such operations that would enable them (peacekeepers) to confront such dangers," Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, told the council.

Liu called for a systematic improvement of peacekeeping operations, including enhancing the emergency response, security warning and protection capabilities.

China is the largest contributor of peacekeeping troops among the five permanent members of the Security Council and has over 2,600 blue helmets deployed in 11 missions currently, and a total of some 30,000 peacekeepers over the years.

Kairat Abdrakhmanov, Kazakhstan's ambassador, said current hybrid peacekeeping operations such as the UN and African Union joint missions, "are all the more vulnerable and therefore urgently require a systematized plan to reduce the higher risks by adapting existing approaches or creating new strategies."

To improve the understanding of the political and historical context is "all the more necessary" for multi-dimensional missions in hazardous situations, he said.

The Kazakh ambassador also believed technical support was important, citing unmanned aerial vehicles, to be "used solely for surveillance purposes," and intelligence equipment for monitoring the environment. Endi