Government buys combat helicopters

President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone has announced the purchase of two new helicopter gunships designed to confront "internal and potential external aggression", a government spokesman told IRIN on Wednesday. Kabbah made the announcement at a ceremony marking the country's 38th independence anniversary on Tuesday in which he was quoted as saying the helicopters would be used in the country's war against rebels and "to warn those interfering in the sovereignty of our country that we are now preparing for any external aggressors". The helicopters, which military analysts identified as Ukrainian-built Mi-24 gunships, would be used "to ensure the security and stability" of Sierra Leone, presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai told IRIN. Analysts interpreted the announcement as a "warning" to President Charles Taylor of neighbouring Liberia. Since the outset of the Sierra Leone conflict eight years ago, Liberia has been blamed by Freetown and other countries for supporting rebels of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and a group of army renegades called the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in their war against Kabbah's democratically elected administration.