Koroma threatened, government cracks down on rebels

A threat on the life of the leader of Sierra Leone's former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) junta has led to a government crackdown on rebels, Information Minister Julius Spencer told IRIN on Monday. "There was a threat made on Johnny Paul Koroma. He reported the matter and four suspects were arrested initially," Spencer said. He added the security forces were conducting an intensive search for other rebel dissidents. According to news reports, seven former Sierra Leonean Army (ex-SLA) soldiers, members of the old national force that supported the 1997-1998 AFRC junta, have been detained by the authorities on suspicion of threatening to kill Koroma, who chairs a state body called the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace. Meanwhile, Koroma said at the weekend on state radio that he wanted to "warn all AFRC/SLA personnel who had former combatants as bodyguards to cut down their number to two". Reuters reported him as saying that any extra bodyguards would be redeployed and anyone who failed to comply would be arrested.