US Military Contractors Teach Former Sierra Leone Rebels How to Fight

Condensed from “Sierra Leone's Former Fighters Train to Keep Peace Abroad,” copyright Reuters, published in the Cambodia Daily, Oct. 27, 2010.  All text below is copyright Reuters.

HASTINGS, SIERRA LEONE – In a patch of freshly cleared bus a short drive outside Freetown, the capital, US trainers look on as Sierra Leonean troops square their rifles at imagined targets.
     Those selected as potential peacekeepers are now being taken under the wing of the American Africa Contingency Operations Training and assistance program, which pays private military contractors to train African armies.
     The soldiers – many of whom fought in Sierra Leone's civil war – are finding the program a stark contrast to their previous combat experience.
     “There is a lot of difference between the rebel fight and the military training,” said 31-year-old Lance Corporal Hassan Conteh, a former rebel.  “In terms of the rebel fight, we just do things at random, without good control.”