United Nations troops and their allies in Sierra Leone took on the trappings of a heavyweight military force yesterday, preparing for a showdown with rebels who seized hundreds of UN peacekeepers and threatened to skin some alive.
After 10 days during which the ragtag Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels have humiliated the United Nations and threatened to overrun the capital, Freetown, their offensive came to a juddering halt.
A battalion commander with the Sierra Leone army said the rebels had been pushed back beyond Magbuntoso, 60 km from Freetown. "By tomorrow my joint forces will definitely get to Masiaka," Maj Francis Sowa said, referring to an inland town on a key road junction.
Meanwhile, UN and British forces strengthened their firepower. The British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious headed for Freetown with 600 marines, reinforcing 700 paratroops who control strategic points in and around the capital.
The Illustrious carried 13 Harrier fighter jets which, if they go into action, would be the most heavily armed warplanes deployed in the former British colony since civil war began in 1991.
Britain says its troops will have no combat role but might remain in Sierra Leone for up to a month to help the UN force to put the 1999 peace agreement back on track.
The British forces commander in Sierra Leone said yesterday that the brunt of the fighting would have to be done by the fledgling Sierra Leone army loyal to President Ahmed Tijan Kabbah.
But asked if his evacuation force's mandate was changing, Brig David Richards told Radio Democracy: "There is discussion of that but because I have personally a great affection for Sierra Leone and the people and all that you have been through - as has my government - that mandate is being liberally interpreted."
More troops from Jordan, India and Bangladesh are expected to arrive soon to raise the number of peacekeepers in the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (Unamsil) from the current 8,900 troops to more than 11,000.
But the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front, indisciplined and lightly armed but thought to number at least 15,000, still held hundreds of human bargaining chips - the UN troops, mostly Zambians, whom they captured upcountry last week.
One of four Western military observers who escaped from the rebels told how they threatened to skin peacekeepers alive.
"The RUF are quite good in psychological warfare, in scaring people into either running away or disarming," Maj Phil Ashby said yesterday.
Although lacking reputable friends abroad, the RUF leader, Mr Foday Sankoh, is a feared warlord at home. His fighters, many press-ganged when they were children, have committed appalling atrocities in previous phases of the civil war.
About 20,000 people gathered in Freetown meanwhile for the state funeral of 19 civilians killed on Monday after Mr Sankoh's bodyguards fired at peace protesters.
"I don't want to hear about him . . . Let Foday Sankoh face international tribunal," one mourner, Ms Mary Lake, said during emotional scenes at the funeral ceremony.
Mr Sankoh has disappeared since Monday's shooting, complicating the task of mediators trying to free the peacekeepers.
The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, addressing the Security Council on the Sierra Leone crisis on Thursday, demanded an immediate and unconditional release of the peace troops.
Mr Annan said he was not against African demands for a more robust offensive mandate provided that rich nations gave logistical and financial support.
"The plight of Sierra Leone and its people has become a crucial test of that fundamental solidarity between peoples, rising above race and above geography, which is the most basic guiding principle of this organisation," said Mr Annan, who acknowledges that Unamsil was woefully ill-prepared.