"The exit of the United Nations military mission in Sierra Leone clearly indicates that the country is now at peace with itself and its neighbours," the government and the mission known as UNAMSIL said in a joint statement broadcast on national radio.

Once the world's largest peacekeeping force with 17,500 personnel at its peak in 2001, UNAMSIL has been hailed as a success for restoring the diamond-rich West African nation to a stable footing after the 1991-2001 conflict that killed 120,000 people and maimed thousands.

"UNAMSIL will occupy an important place in the history of Sierra Leone," said President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who was ousted for a year by rebel forces in 1997 and re-elected in a UN-policed election five years later.

The last contingent of 300 Pakistani blue helmets left the country on December 15, with Nigerian, Ghanian, British and Pakistani officers drawing down the curtains for the last time at their headquarters five days later.

Created in October 1999, the mission was to end officially at midnight Saturday. Some 165 UN military and civilian personnel were killed restoring peace to the country whose 5.4 million people are among the world's poorest.

A UN Security Council-backed Integrated Mission will continue to oversee peace consolidation for an initial one-year term from January 1, charged with bedding down the rule of law, governance and presidential and legislative elections in 2007.

The office will include a small group of military and police advisors, and a contingent of troops to safeguard the UN war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.

Foreign Minister Momodu Koroma told AFP Sierra Leone was well prepared to confront the challenges, pointing out three general elections and a local poll were organised under UNAMSIL.

Stability had improved with decentralising of government and the creation of 19 local councils, he said.

"This was a process of building democracy to ensure that the people exercise their rights and (to encourage) popular participation in governance and stability," he said.

To mark the end of the peacekeeping mission, religious leaders staged a six-hour vigil named Operation Prayer Storm.

Running from midnight Friday through the early hours of Saturday, preachers led prayers for continuing peace in a program carried by 27 FM radio stations around the country.

Bars and restaurants closed at midnight while nightclubs left their doors open to express solidarity with the initiative.

But while those in the capital of Freetown largely fell into line, it looked much like an average Friday night at a few roadside pubs.

"We all pray for Sierra Leone but this is a period of merriment that comes once a year," said one customer.

The peacekeeping mission disarmed thousands of rebels, helped rebuild the country's police force, assisted in national elections and cracked down on the illicit diamond trade that financed rebels' arms purchases.

The mission nearly collapsed and the image of UN peacekeeping suffered a dramatic setback when in May 2000 rebels flouted a ceasefire and kidnapped hundreds of peacekeepers.

But by May 2002 the country was able to hold fresh elections and a legal trade in the country's rich diamond mining sector was re-established in June the following year.

Also in 2003, the war crimes tribunal indicted Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor for his role in the civil war, accusing him of fueling the conflict to profit from the country's diamond wealth.

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