British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War

In early May 2000, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)—one of the main parties to the civil war—advanced on the country's capital, Freetown, prompting the British government to dispatch an "Operational Reconnaissance and Liaison Team" (ORLT) to prepare to evacuate foreign citizens.

Negotiations achieved the release of five of the eleven soldiers, and three weeks into the crisis, British special forces launched a mission codenamed Operation Barras, freeing the remaining six.

[8][9] The following years saw a series of coups and interventions by private military companies,[9] Nigeria, the Economic Community of West African States, and the United Nations (UN), while a bloody civil war devastated the country.

[11] Among other provisions, the agreement mandated an immediate ceasefire between the main parties to the civil war and the disarmament of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and the RUF.

[12][13][14] However, Peter Hain, Minister of State for Africa, suggested that the British government had no choice but to endorse the Lomé agreement given the RUF's dominance, and that the only alternative was continued civil war.

[15] The intervention in Sierra Leone was the fourth expeditionary operation and the second significant deployment undertaken by Her Majesty's Armed Forces under Tony Blair, who was elected as Prime Minister in 1997.

[22] Kosovo did not diminish Blair's belief in the use of military force for humanitarian purposes "where a strong moral case could be made",[23] and he outlined a set of criteria for intervention.

[21] The intervention in Sierra Leone, according to Andrew M. Dorman of King's College London, "appears to embody much of the ethos contained within [the Chicago speech]".

[note 1][24] Following the restoration of the elected government by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in February 1998, HMS Cornwall sailed to Freetown with food and medical supplies.

The observer force, like UNAMSIL itself, was primarily made up of personnel from other African nations, but the United Kingdom contributed a small number of officers from the British Army and Royal Marines.

[32][33] In addition to the observers in Sierra Leone, personnel from the Royal Logistic Corps were serving in New York, assisting UNAMSIL with organising air-lifts to bring the mission up to its authorised strength.

In response to the deterioration Richards requested that British troops be sent to Dakar, Senegal, to decrease the time required to launch an operation in Sierra Leone.

Thus, the enhanced 1 PARA was flown to Dakar on 7 May, where C Company and the special forces squadron were almost immediately put aboard RAF Hercules C-130s with orders to secure the airport.

[54][58] In Westminster, the three government departments concerned with the British role in Sierra Leone—the MoD, the FCO, and DfID—struggled to agree on the objectives of the military deployment beyond the evacuation, which led to delays in issuing orders.

[68] On 12 May, Baroness Symons, a junior minister in the MoD, told the House of Lords that British forces would remain in Sierra Leone, mainly to ensure the security of Lungi airport while UNAMSIL brought in reinforcements.

[73] Foday Sankoh, leader of the RUF, was captured later the same day by forces loyal to President Kabbah and handed over to the Sierra Leone Police, but had to be evacuated by an RAF Chinook after a hostile crowd gathered outside the building in which he was held.

[71] Sankoh's capture created a power vacuum at the top of the RUF and the subsequent in-fighting provided an opportunity for the MoD to order a rotation of forces deployed in Sierra Leone.

The 1 PARA battlegroup was ordered back to the United Kingdom to resume its spearhead role as the permanent stand-by battalion that would form the basis of any emergency deployment, while 42 Commando, Royal Marines, came ashore to replace the soldiers.

Although UNAMSIL's mandate would have allowed it to enter into combat with the RUF, the national contingents were reluctant to leave their bases and its focus remained on peacekeeping rather than the peace enforcement that the British and others believed was necessary.

[85] Following Operation Barras, two SLA battalions—graduates of the British short-term training programme—swept the area surrounding the West Side Boys' camp to clear it of any remaining gang members.

[90] In August 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1313, which blamed the RUF for the continuing conflict in Sierra Leone, citing multiple breaches of the Lomé Peace Accord.

[94] A company of Gurkhas and a Royal Navy frigate were sent to the area in March 2003 to ensure stability while several prominent people—including Charles Taylor of Liberia, cabinet minister Samuel Hinga Norman, and several former RUF leaders—were arrested and indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

[102] According to Penfold, who served as High Commissioner until the week before the deployment of British troops, "The fact that the major country in the region, i.e. Nigeria, and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, i.e. the UK, took an active interest was crucial in resolving the conflict".

[105] The intervention in Sierra Leone was the fourth deployment of British forces abroad during the premiership of Tony Blair, and the largest operation undertaken by the United Kingdom alone since the Falklands War (1982).

[23] He was keen to intervene in other African nations where civilian populations were at risk, particularly Darfur and Zimbabwe,[110][112] but a lack of political support, combined with the pressure of large deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq after the 11 September attacks on the United States, prevented further interventions in Africa.

[113] It inspired the British government to work more closely with European allies, particularly France after the latter led Operation Artemis, a UN-mandated intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003.

After a summit in 2003, the two governments called on the European Union (EU) to develop the capability to rapidly deploy a battle group of around 1,500 personnel able to respond to crises, particularly in Africa.

The 2004 review reduced the total number of British Army battalions from 40 to 36 and created the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG), which was inspired by the success of 1 PARA in Operation Barras.

[117] As the largest unilateral operation undertaken by the United Kingdom since their creation, the intervention in Sierra Leone was the first major test of the ORLT and joint task force concepts.

[48] According to Richards, both were "thoroughly validated" and were vital in coordinating the large numbers of assets deployed at short notice and reporting back to the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood.