Malaysia will deploy 360 peacekeepers to southern Lebanon in October to join the United Nations force there, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said today.

"Within one month we will arrange for the deployment of our troops," Najib said according to the official news agency Bernama .

Najib said Malaysia has not decided where the Malaysian peacekeepers, who will be part of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), would be based.

"We have to look at the situation there and the places where our soldiers will be stationed," he said.

Last week Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is chairman of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, said the UN had approved the deployment of the Malaysian peacekeepers.

Malaysia had earlier offered 1,000 soldiers for the expanded UN force in Lebanon, citing past peacekeeping experience in Bosnia and Somalia.