British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War

The United Kingdom began a military intervention in Sierra Leone in May 2000 under the codename Operation Palliser. Although small numbers of British personnel had been deployed previously, Palliser was the first large-scale intervention by British forces 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. On 6 May, the RUF blocked the road connecting Freetown to the country's main airport, Lungi. The next day, British soldiers began to secure the airport and other areas essential to an evacuation. The majority of those who wished to leave were evacuated within the first two days of the operation, but many chose to stay following the arrival of British forces.

After the effective completion of the evacuation, the mandate of the British forces began to expand. They assisted with the evacuation of besieged peacekeepers—including several British ceasefire observers—and began to assist the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and the Sierra Leone Army (SLA). Despite the mission expansion, it was not until 17 May that British soldiers came into direct contact with the RUF. The rebels attacked a British position near Lungi airport, but were forced to retreat after a series of firefights. On the same day, the RUF's leader, Foday Sankoh, was captured by Sierra Leonean forces, leaving the RUF in disarray. After deciding that the RUF would not disarm voluntarily, the British began training the SLA for a confrontation. During the training mission, a patrol returning from a visit to Jordanian peacekeepers was taken captive by a militia group known as the West Side Boys. 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. The success of Operation Barras restored confidence in the British mission; one academic suggested that its failure would have forced the British government to withdraw all its forces from Sierra Leone.

The overall British operation was mostly completed by September 2000. The RUF began to disarm after political pressure, and later economic sanctions, were exerted on Liberia—which had supported the RUF in exchange for conflict diamondssmuggled out of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leonean government eventually signed a ceasefire with the RUF that obliged the latter to enter the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) process. By September 2001, when the British training teams were replaced by an international force, the DDR process was almost complete. British forces continued to be involved in Sierra Leone by providing the largest contribution of personnel to the international training team and advising on a restructuring of Sierra Leone's armed forces. A small force was deployed to the area in 2003 to ensure stability while several indictments and arrests were made by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The success of British operations in Sierra Leone vindicated several concepts, including the retention of high-readiness forces. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was keen to see Western interventions in other conflicts, and—along with France—supported the creation of several European Union Battlegroups for the purpose. As it happened, political opposition and later British commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq prevented further British operations in Africa.