By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 15 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to extend its peacekeeping mission in Haiti for eight months and ask troops to step up operations against criminal gangs.

Most council members, including the United States, wanted a one year extension but China argued for a six-month renewal so the 15-member body could consider drawing down troops and changing the mandate. The compromise was to renew the mission for eight months, until Oct. 15.

A U.N. force -- currently made up of 6,800 troops and nearly 2,000 police -- went to Haiti shortly after former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in an armed rebellion in February 2004.

The resolution, drafted by Peru, requests the peacekeepers increase the "tempo of operations" against criminal gangs "as deemed necessary to restore security, notably in Port-au-Prince," the capital.

Hundreds of U.N. soldiers stormed a slum neighborhood in Port-au-Prince on Friday to try to wrest control from a gang, prompting a gunfight that killed one person and wounded several, including two peacekeepers.

But China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya told the council the text had the wrong priorities and concentrated too much on military operations against armed gangs, which could not "be a long-term strategy."

Instead the main challenge should be to assist the Haitian government in building up civilian institutions. He said several of his amendments were rejected but he voted in favor in the interest of consensus for an eight instead of a six month renewal. Haiti has ties with Taiwan but not with Beijing.

In response, Panama's U.N. Ambassador Ricardo Alberto Arias, speaking for Latin American nations which play a major role in the U.N. operation, said the eight-month mandate was too short as the United Nations would have to remain in Haiti for "12 months and beyond."

A longer mandate, he said, did not preclude changing the shape of the mission to reduce the military and increase police and political advisers, Arias told the council.

Violence in Haiti appears to have eased since President Rene Preval was elected almost a year ago. But poverty, joblessness and the drug trade still fuel widespread crime. And the judicial system is in shambles.

The resolution "deplores and condemns in the strongest terms any attack against personnel from the U.N. Mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym as MINUSTAH.

According to the International Crisis Group think-tank, violent and organized crime threaten to overwhelm Haiti because the justice system is too dysfunctional to cope with the rising wave of kidnappings, drug, assaults and rape.

"The judiciary is encumbered by incompetence and corruption, partly due to inadequate pay," the ICG said. Some 96 percent of the inmates at the National Penitentiary are kept without trial.

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