Peacekeepers Seized in Sierra Leone, U.N. Says

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Rebels in Sierra Leone have seized 21 Indian peacekeepers and moved them from their besieged post in the eastern part of the country, possibly planning to free them into neighboring Liberia, the United Nations said Tuesday.

But a U.N. spokesman acknowledged that the motives of the rebels, who temporarily held hundreds of peacekeepers hostage in May, remained unclear.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke by telephone with Liberian President Charles Taylor, who had helped free about 500 peacekeepers.

In Freetown, the Sierra Leonean capital, U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst said that Revolutionary United Front rebels, who had been surrounding the 21 peacekeepers in Kuiva for the past month, seized them and moved them Monday.