Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 10, 2013

The United Kingdom's military intervention in Sierra Leone in May 2000 was the first large-scale intervention by British forces in the country's civil war. A team was dispatched under Brigadier David Richards (pictured in 2012) to evacuate foreign citizens after the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) advanced on the country's capital, Freetown. British forces then began to assist the U.N. Mission in Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone Army (SLA). They first came into direct contact with the RUF 10 days after arrival, when the rebels attacked a British position near Lungi International Airport. While training the SLA for confrontations with the RUF, a British patrol was taken captive by a militia group known as the West Side Boys. Negotiations achieved the release of five soldiers; three weeks later, British special forces freed the remaining six, restoring confidence in the British mission. The RUF began to disarm after political pressure and economic sanctions were exerted on its supporter Liberia. The British training teams were replaced by an international force in September 2001. The mission's success vindicated several concepts, including the retention of high-readiness forces.

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