ECOMOG says attacks near Freetown no threat

Officers with ECOMOG’s intervention force in Sierra Leone told IRIN today (Monday) that recent attacks near the capital, Freetown, were no threat to the city. An ECOMOG officer confirmed an earlier news agency report quoting Brigadier General Maxwell Khobe as saying the recent attacks near Masiaka, 96 km east of Freetown, and Lunsar, 80 km northeast of the capital, were isolated events. “They sneak into a place and then disappear,” AFP quoted Khobe, a Nigerian who is Sierra Leone’s defence chief, as saying. AFP also quoted Khobe as saying that ECOMOG needed another 5,000 troops and between US $25 million and $35 million to defeat the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and its ousted military junta allies. But ECOMOG officers could not immediately confirm these figures.