UN set for Sierra Leone 'offensive'

British forces have been supplying Freetown airport

The UN commander in Sierra Leone has sanctioned a more offensive role against the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a senior British officer has said.

Brigadier David Richards told the BBC that the UN soldiers would move out from the capital Freetown into the rebel-held countryside.

There have been concerns about UK role in Sierra Leone

He said UN commander General Vijay Jetley was planning "a move east and to some extent south... towards the RUF heartland".

The rebels still hold more than 300 UN personnel and the UN's special representative in Sierra Leone, Oluyemi Adeniji, earlier urged the country's army not to launch an offensive.

Nigerian commitment

The UK Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Charles Guthrie, has held talks in Nigeria on possible initiatives to tackle the rebels.

Vice-President Atiku Abubakar told him that Nigeria was ready to send more troops, as long as the UN met the costs involved.

Nigeria already has four battalions as part of the UN peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone.

A further two are committed, and if the UN Security Council resolves to increase the overall size of the force beyond its current maximum of 11,000, Nigeria might be prepared to send more still, he said.

The UN is manning checkpoints around Freetown

General Guthrie predicted that restoring peace to the former British colony would be a "long haul".

He said he was considering whether to deploy some 800 marines on board six Royal Navy ships anchored off Freetown to join the 700 paratroopers in the capital, but had "no firm plans about it".

Earlier on Tuesday a report in the Daily Telegraph said UN peacekeepers from Nigeria had threatened to shoot British soldiers after several days of growing tension between the two allies.

But the BBC's Mark Doyle in Freetown says that although there may be some envy about the UK troops' superior equipment, reports that Nigerians might start shooting at them are far-fetched.

'Rebel colonel' speaks

The fragility of the situation on the ground was highlighted on Tuesday when a man claiming to be a rebel officer told the BBC that rebels feared being killed if they laid down their weapons.

The man, giving his name as Colonel Bao, told the BBC African Service that he was an RUF commander speaking from the field.

"We have not disarmed yet. They will just arrest us, put us in a container and then chuck us in the sea," he said.

"Colonel Bao" also accused the UN of detaining RUF leader Foday Sankoh.

"They should release our leader so that we can revisit the Lome peace accord," he said.

Releases

The weekend releases of 139 UN hostages gave some hope that the country's peace accord could be salvaged.

"As you can imagine, the morale is good and their men are encouraged by this," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in New York.

The UN representative in Freetown urged an halt to the fighting.

"Our point is that all sides should stop hostilities and go back to the positions where they were and not attempt to move from those positions," Oluyemi Adeniji said.

Earlier, Liberian President Charles Taylor warned that attacks by the government troops on the RUF could endanger the welfare of UN personnel still in rebel captivity.

Jesse Jackson: Backs President Kabbah's government

President Taylor, who is known to have had close links with the RUF, has already proved he can play a crucial role in the release of the hostages.

However more than 100 of the freed peacekeepers have been reported stranded in a remote corner of neighbouring Liberia.

Efforts to resolve the crisis will receive another boost when prominent US civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson arrives in Sierra Leone with a plea from US President Bill Clinton for an end to the conflict.

Reverend Jackson said his mission was to support what he called the legitimate, democratic government of President Ahmad Kabbah, adding that he wanted to "condemn fully and unequivocally the violations of the Lome [peace] agreement by the RUF".