The soldiers will join an initial group of 40 U.S. troops stationed in Nigeria. They will train and equip three Nigerian battalions comprising 4,000 troops, which are part of a 13,000-strong occupation force in Sierra Leone under the United Nations aegis. They will also train soldiers from Ghana, and possibly Mali and Senegal.

The UN-sponsored force, together with British ground and naval troops, are backing the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah against the Revolutionary United Front [RUF]. The British and U.S. rulers have their eyes on Sierra Leone's lucrative mineral wealth as well as the strategic position of the region.

Washington, seeking to establish itself as the dominant imperialist power on the African continent, has been cautious about direct military involvement in Sierra Leone, relying so far on British and Nigerian forces.

The Nigerian regime, the strongest West African government, headed a regional intervention force that retook Freetown, Sierra Leone, in early 1999 and imposed a shaky cease-fire, but later withdrew. It was replaced by a weaker UN-led force that unraveled in May when RUF troops took hostage hundreds of UN soldiers, later freed by a UN "rescue mission."

In response, the Clinton administration offered $20 million to beef up the UN occupation force, including the U.S. "trainers."

In early August the UN Security Council--dominated by Washington, London, and Paris--adopted a British resolution directing UN forces to act more aggressively in Sierra Leone.

Later in August the Security Council will vote on a U.S. resolution to set up a tribunal to try antigovernment forces accused of atrocities.

The new deployment of U.S. soldiers, presently stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will represent Washington's biggest military commitment in Africa in nearly a decade. U.S. president Clinton plans to travel to Nigeria at the end of August, in an effort to bolster U.S. influence on the continent at the expense of its imperialist rivals in London and Paris.