SIRTE, Feb 28: African leaders agreed on Saturday to set up a multinational force empowered to intervene across the troubled continent to end civil wars or genocide.

The African Standby Force would be deployed at five regional bases next year, expanding to a continental force by 2010, a declaration adopted at an African Union (AU) summit said.

Initially, it would involve some 15,000 AU troops, drawn primarily from the continent's military powerhouses - South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt, AU sources said.

With fragile peace efforts in the continent's many trouble spots, there has been international pressure on the Ethiopia-based AU to take an active lead in peacekeeping.

African leaders are keen to avoid a repeat of mass killings such as the 1994 Rwanda genocide when extremists from the Hutu majority slaughtered 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

Heads of state and prime ministers of the 53-nation AU who met for two days at the Libyan coastal city of Sirte unanimously approved the Common Defence and Security Policy for Africa.

"The rapid reaction force will have a peace-building and humanitarian role, and may intervene unilaterally in the event of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as a serious threat to legitimate order," the text said.

Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano, current AU chairman, called the new common defence policy 'a collective answer to threats, whether internal or external, over the continent".-Reuters