The modern Armed Forces of Liberia grew out of a
militia that was formed by the first black colonists from the United States. The militia was first formed when in August 1822 an attack was feared on
Cape Mesurado (where
Monrovia now is) and the agent of the settlements directed the mobilization of all "able-bodied males into a militia and declared martial law." By 1846, the size of the militia had grown to two regiments. Following independence in 1847, the militia continued to serve as the country's defense force Following the model of the United States Army. In 1900, Liberian men between the ages of sixteen and fifty were considered liable for service in the militia. The militia also had a navy consisting of two small gunboats. In the 1850s, the Liberian president requested naval support from the British government to transport Liberian troops to the
Gallinas territory to punish Liberians there who persisted in slave trafficking. On February 6, 1908, the militia was established on a permanent basis as the 500-strong Liberian Frontier Force (LFF). The LFF's original mission was "to patrol the border in the Hinterland [against British and French territorial ambitions] and to prevent disorders." The LFF was initially placed under the command of British Major
MacKay Cadell, who was quickly replaced under threat of arms after he complained the Force was not being properly paid. In 1912, the United States established military ties with Liberia by sending some five black American officers to help reorganize the force. The LFF in its early years was frequently recruited by inducing men from the interior forcibly. When dispatched to the interior to quell tribal unrest, units often lived off the areas that they were pacifying, as a form of communal punishment. The Force's officers were drawn from either the coastal aristocracy or tribal elites. During World War II, U.S. involvement in the country increased greatly. A steady supply of rubber from the world's largest rubber plantation, operated at Harbel by the Firestone Company since 1926 was vital. Thus the US government built roads, created an international airport (known as
Robertsfield), and transformed the capital by building a deep water port (the
Freeport of Monrovia). Black ("Colored")
United States Army troops of the 41st Engineer General Service Regiment arrived from June 1942 as members of Task Force 5889. During the war, funding provided by the United States allowed an increase in the Frontier Force's strength to around 1,500. The armed forces came to rely almost exclusively on American assistance in terms of training, with non-US training "tend[ing] to be brief and uninspired [with little] accomplished other than some desultory close-order drill." As a result of American arms sales, by the 1920s Liberian forces were equipped with the American
Krag and
Peabody rifles, as well as German
Mausers. U.S. Army Forces in Liberia (USAFIL) commanded by Brigadier General Percy Lee Sadler also established an
officer candidate school during the later part of World War II, using U.S. Army instructors selected from the troops in the country. The school conducted two courses and graduated nearly 300 new officers. USAFIL was finally inactivated on 24 February 1946. Just under twenty years later in 1964, the group still made up over 50% of the officer corps of the AFL.
1945–1980 in 1976 From 1945 to 1964, the officers appointed were nearly all college graduates. From 1951, there was a US military mission based in Liberia to assist in training the AFL. A Reserve Officers' Training Corps was established in 1956 with units at the
University of Liberia in Monrovia and the
Booker Washington Institute in
Kakata. By 1978 the program had been redesignated the Army Student Training Program (ASTP) and had a total of 46 students at the
University of Liberia, the
Booker Washington Institute, and three smaller institutions. However it was not until the late 1960s that the
Tubman Military Academy was established in
Todee District, upper
Montserrado County, as an officer training facility. The LFF was renamed as the Armed Forces of Liberia under the Amended National Defense Law of 1956, though other sources say February 1962, which appears to have been the date the land force became the Liberian National Guard. Liebenow says that the LFF was 'restyled the National Guard in 1962.' From this period, Liberia's armed forces consisted of the Liberian National Guard, the Liberian Militia, whose ostensible structure is depicted below, and the Liberian Coast Guard. Until 1980, by law every able-bodied male between the ages of 16 and 45 years was to serve in the militia, though this stipulation was not enforced. On January 26, 1957, the Liberian Legislature set aside Feb 11, 1957, as Armed Forces Day. Speaking in 2012, Jonathan B. B. Hart, the Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Liberia recalled that "..the Sierra Leoneans were sent to Liberia to take over the army by the British government because it had given Liberia a loan." .. "The Sierra Leonean commanders took orders from the British government and not the President of Liberia, then Arthur Barclay. When they began to misbehave, the army was turned over to a Liberian who refused. It was during that time that some soldiers took to the streets in demand of salary arrears, so soldiers getting in the streets.. in demand of salary is not new." At the start of the 1960s, Liberia dispatched troops, including a movement control unit, to support
ONUC during the
Congo Crisis, and were airlifted into the Congo by the United States Air Force. The Liberian troops were initially in
Équateur province. In 1961, during their first combat action in the country, 300 Liberian troops repelled an attack by 5,000
Baluba tribesmen and their European officers. The National Guard was not a high status force: "It was a skeleton bigade of soldiers who were predominantly from the lower economic and social stratum of society. They were poorly paid, and had less than decent facilities for accommodation and care." In addition, Albert T. White, Commanding Officer of the LNG, was 'rusticated' by Tubman to become the Superintendent of
Grand Gedeh County in 1966, though he was later 'rehabilitated'. In 1964 the US Army Area Handbook described the National Guard as 3,000 strong with a headquarters company, the Executive Mansion Guard Battalion in Monrovia, three infantry battalions and one engineer battalion (which was newly formed at Camp Naama in 1962 and only had one company organized). The three infantry battalions were the 1st Infantry Battalion, at Camp Schiefflin, situated on the airport road between
Monrovia and
Roberts International Airport, the 2nd Infantry Battalion, HQ at Barclay Training Center (BTC), Monrovia, and the 3rd Infantry Battalion, HQ at Baworobo,
Maryland County. By 1978, the LNG Brigade had been established and the brigade was described as comprising a
Headquarters and Headquarters Company at the Barclay Training Center, Monrovia, the Executive Mansion Guard Battalion on Capitol Hill, Monrovia, the Engineer Battalion and the First Field Artillery Battalion (both at Camp Jackson, Naama) two tactical combat battalions (the First Infantry Battalion, at Schiefflin and the Second Infantry Battalion which in the intervening period had moved from the BTC to Camp Tolbert, Todee) and three non-tactical battalions, tasked with providing guard services to government officials, tax collection, and 'other non-military duties'. The Third Infantry Battalion covered Montserrado, Grand Cape Mount, and
Grand Bassa counties from BTC. The Fourth Infantry Battalion covered
Grand Gedeh,
Sinoe and
Maryland counties from Camp Whisnant,
Zwedru. The Fifth Infantry Battalion was at
Gbarnga. The Service Support Battalion was located at BTC, and comprised the Medical Company, the Brigade Band, the Brigade Special Unit (a parade unit) and the Military Police Unit. Also at BTC was the Logistical Command, consisting of a depot, arsenal (whose location had been declared unsafe), the AFL Quartermaster Corps, and the AFL Transportation Company. Strength was reported to be 4,822 in 1978. By the early 1970s the militia reported a strength of some 4,000 poorly trained and ill-equipped men. The 1978 Annual Report of the Liberian Ministry of National Defense said that "The various militia regiments, in accordance with the law, held quarterly parades. ...Furthermore, the entire Regiments were out in full strength during burial occasions." By the time it was disbanded in 1980, the militia was considered to be completely ineffective as a military force. The armed forces' third arm, the Liberian National Coast Guard, was established in 1959. Throughout the Tubman period the coastguard was little more than a few sometimes unserviceable patrol craft crewed by ill-trained personnel, though its training improved in the 1980s to the point where it was considered the best trained of the armed services. From 1952 onwards, Chiefs of Staff of the AFL included Major General Alexander Harper (1952–54), Lieutenant General Abraham Jackson (1954–60), Albert T. White (1964–65), Lieutenant General
George T. Washington (late 1960s), Lieutenant General Henry Johnson (1970–74), Lieutenant General Franklin Smith, and Lieutenant General Henry Dubar (1980–1990). When
William Tolbert replaced the long-serving
William Tubman as president in 1971, he retired more than 400 aging soldiers. Sawyer comments that "retired soldiers were replaced by young recruits from urban areas, many of whom were then poorly trained at the Tubman Military Academy. This development dramatically changed the character of the military in Liberia." (
Samuel Doe was among this group.)
Amos Sawyer also comments that "recruitment of such individuals for the military was part of Tolbert's efforts to replace aging, illiterate soldiers with younger, literate men who were capable of absorbing technical and professional training."
Doe regime (1980–1990) with United States Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger during a visit to Washington DC in 1982 The AFL became involved in politics when seventeen soldiers launched a coup on April 12, 1980. The group was made up of
Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, two
staff sergeants, four
sergeants, eight
corporals, and two
privates. They found President Tolbert sleeping in his office in the Executive Mansion and there they killed him. While then-Sergeant
Thomas Quiwonkpa led the plotters, it was the group led by Samuel Doe that found Tolbert in his office, and it was Doe, as the highest ranking of the group, who went on the radio the next day to announce the overthrow of the long-entrenched
True Whig Party government. Doe became Head of State and co-chair of the new
People's Redemption Council government. Quiwonkpa became commander of the army and the other co-chair of the PRC. (In the aftermath of the coup, the title of LNG Brigade commanding general was confusingly changed to commanding general of the AFL, reporting to the chief of staff, and it was this position that Quiwonkpa inherited.) Henry Dubar (who had helped recruit Doe personally years before) was promoted in one leap from captain to lieutenant general as chief of staff. From 1980 onward, Doe's systematic promotion of ethnic
Krahn to sensitive posts in the government and military, began to drive deepening divisions within the AFL, among others with Quiwonkpa's
Gio tribe, and to hamper morale. "... Military discipline was an early casualty of the coup. The revolt had been an enlisted men's affair, and one of the first instructions broadcast over the radio had ordered soldiers not to obey their officers. Over four years later, according to observers, the reluctance of most officers to impose discipline had combined with the unwillingness of more than a few enlisted men to accept it." The launch of Doe's coup meant that Major William Jarbo, another soldier with political ambitions who was said to have excellent connections to U.S. security officials, had his takeover plans forestalled. He tried to escape abroad but was hunted down and killed by the new government. The junta started to split in 1983, with Doe telling Quiwonkpa that he was planning to move Quiwonkpa from command of the army to a position as secretary-general of the
People's Redemption Council. Unhappy with this proposed change, Quiwonkpa fled into exile in late 1983, along with his
aide-de-camp Prince Johnson. In 1984 the AFL included the Liberian National Guard (LNG) Brigade and related units (6,300 men), and the Liberian National Coast Guard (about 450 men). The brigade, formed between 1964 and 1978, was based at the Barclay Training Center (BTC) in
Monrovia, and was composed of six
infantry battalions, a
military engineer battalion (which circa 1974 under the command of Colonel Robert M. Blamo completed an airstrip at Belefania Town), a
field artillery battalion (the First Field Artillery Battalion, reportedly at Camp Naama in
Bong County) and a support battalion. Three of the infantry units—the First Infantry Battalion, stationed at Camp Schieffelin, the Second Infantry Battalion at Camp Todee in northern
Montserrado County, and the Sixth Infantry Battalion at
Bomi Hills—were tactical elements designed to operate against hostile forces. The other battalions, the Third Infantry Battalion based at the Barclay Training Centre in Monrovia, the Fourth Infantry Battalion at
Zwedru in
Grand Gedeh County, and the Fifth Infantry Battalion at
Gbarnga in
Bong County served mostly as providers of personnel for non-military duties. Soldiers in these units were used extensively as policemen, customs and immigration officials, and as tax collectors. By mid-1990, discipline within the AFL had reportedly deteriorated significantly. A declassified Central Intelligence Agency information report from June 1990 stated that soldiers were increasingly involved in robberies, shootings, and harassment of civilians in Monrovia, while accidental or irresponsible discharges of weapons occurred almost daily. According to the report, efforts by AFL leadership and the Joint Security Commission to restore order had only limited success, and large numbers of newly inducted recruits were contributing to problems of discipline and cohesion within the force. The deterioration in discipline and cohesion contributed to the AFL's inability to respond effectively when rebel forces led by Charles Taylor invaded Liberia later that year, marking the beginning of the First Liberian Civil War in December 1989.
Attempted coup (1985) In the aftermath of the rigged elections of 1985, which Doe manipulated to solidify his power, Quiwonkpa returned from his U.S. exile to enter Liberia from Sierra Leone. On November 12, 1985, he entered Monrovia with a group of dissident soldiers, took over the national
Liberia Broadcasting System radio station and announced that the 'National Patriotic Forces of Liberia' had seized power. Adekeye says that Quiwonkpa erred in 'fail[ing] to establish control over the country's communications system and resisted a frontal attack on the Executive Mansion.' These mistakes allowed Doe the time to rally the Krahn-dominated Executive Mansion Guard and 1st Infantry Battalion from Camp
Schieffelin to reestablish control. Quiwonkpa was captured, killed, and mutilated, his body being dismembered and parts eaten. In the aftermath of the attempted coup, purges took place in Monrovia and in
Nimba County, Quiwonkpa's home, against those who had rejoiced after the coup announcement. As many as 1,500 people may have been killed. The AFL was purged of Gio soldiers. Under Samuel Doe the Coast Guard was retitled the Liberian Navy in 1986 through the passage of The Liberian Navy Act of 1986. The Aviation Unit was founded in 1970 with the delivery of three Cessna U-17C light aircraft. An Aviation Unit aircraft crashed at Spriggs-Payne in 1984. In 1985 it operated three fixed-wing aircraft from
Spriggs Payne Airport in Monrovia, including
Cessna 172s. Their duties included reconnaissance and transport of light cargo and VIPs. The Aviation Unit was expanded in the 1980s with the delivery of more Cessna aircraft: three 172s, a 206, 207 and two single engined turboprop 208s. The Liberian Air Force was established from the Aviation Unit by an Act of Legislature on August 12, 1987. Its statutory responsibilities were to: protect and defend the air space of the Republic of Liberia; protect lives and properties; provide air mobility for military and civil personnel; assist in search and rescue operations; undertake emergency operations; conduct reconnaissance patrols; participate in joint military operations and perform other duties as may be designated by the Ministry of Defense. under then-Colonel
Hezekiah Bowen. The Liberian government forces assumed that most of the Mano and Gio peoples in the Nimba region were supporting the rebels. They thus acted in a very brutal and scorched-earth fashion which quickly alienated the local people. Taylor's support rose rapidly, as the Mano and Gio flocked to his
National Patriotic Front of Liberia seeking revenge. Many government soldiers deserted, some to join the NPFL. The inability of the AFL to make any headway was one of the reasons why Doe changed his field commander in the area five times in the first six months of the war. Field commanders apparently included Brigadier General Edward Smith. By May 1990 the AFL had been forced back to
Gbarnga, still under the control of Bowen's troops, but they lost the town to a NPFL assault by the end of May 1990, at which time the NPFL also captured
Buchanan on the coast. The NPFL had now gathered an estimated 10,000 fighters while the AFL, splintering, could only summon 2,000. The revolt reached Monrovia by July 1990, and General Dubar left the country for exile in the United States. In place of Dubar, Brigadier General Charles Julu, former commander of the Executive Mansion Guard Battalion, was appointed Chief of Staff. Two Liberian Coast Guard vessels were sunk in the battles for the city. The NPFL had been distributing weapons to Gio civilians after it arrived in Nimba, where many were very interested in taking their revenge on the government after Doe had punished Nimba country for its support of Quiwonkpa in 1983 and 1985. By July 1990 the government began to distribute weapons to civilians in turn, to Krahn and Mandingo who wished to protect themselves. These hastily enlisted civilians became known as '1990 soldiers.' A '1990 soldier' which the President had personally picked, Tailey Yonbu, led a massacre of refugees, mostly Gio and Mano civilians, on the night of July 29/30, 1990 at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in
Sinkor, Monrovia. Some 600 were killed. Because of the previous ethnic purges carried out by Doe's forces, the conflict took on characteristics of an ethnic pogrom. In August 1990 the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) dispatched a peacekeeping force,
ECOMOG, to Liberia. The force arrived at the Freeport of Monrovia on August 24, 1990, landing from Nigerian and Ghanaian vessels. By the time ECOMOG arrived, Prince Johnson's INPFL and Taylor's NPFL were fighting on the outside bounds of the port. A series of peacemaking conferences in regional capitals followed. There were meetings in Bamako in November 1990, Lome in January 1991, and Yamoussoukro in June–October 1991. The first seven peace conferences, including the Yamoussoukro I-IV processes and the Carter Center negotiation leading to the Cotonou Accords, failed due to lack of agreement between the warring factions. The NPFL launched an assault on Monrovia in 1992, which they named 'Operation Octopus.' The civil war lasted until the Abuja Accords of August 1996. The AFL was confined to an enclave around the capital during the conflict, and did not play a significant part in the fighting. Elections in July 1997 finally brought Taylor to power. Under the accords, which led to a break in fighting in 1996 and the
Liberian general election, 1997,
ECOMOG was to retrain a new national army based on fair ethnic and geographical representation. Yet Taylor denied ECOMOG any role in the restructuring of the AFL, and the force eventually left Liberia by the end of 1998. During the 1990–99 period, Chiefs of Staff included Lieutenant Colonel Davis S. Brapoh, Lieutenant General Hezekiah Bowen (later Minister of Defense), Lieutenant General A.M.V. Doumuyah, and Lieutenant General Kalilu
Abe Kromah, appointed during the interim rule of the Council of State in 1996, who was chief of staff from May 1996 to April 1997. Following Kromah, Lieutenant General Prince C. Johnson was appointed, who died in October 1999 following a car accident. Demonstrations and protests by the demobilized personnel eventually led to a riot in which three died on May 5, 1998. As a result, Taylor authorised the formation of a commission to submit recommendations on how the AFL should be reorganized. The commission, led by Blamoh Nelson, Director of the Cabinet, submitted its report on December 17, 1998, recommending a 6,000-strong armed forces (5,160 Army, 600 Navy, and 240 Air Force) but the proposal was never implemented. Instead Taylor ran down the Armed Forces, letting go 2,400–2,600 former personnel, many of whom were
Krahn brought in by former President Doe, in December 1997 – January 1998, and building up instead the
Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU), the Special Operations Division of the
Liberian National Police, and the Special Security Service. On November 19, 1999, Taylor named General Kpenkpah Konah as the new Chief of Staff of the AFL (where he would stay until 2006) and
John Tarnue as head of the army. Tarnue was later implicated in a land dispute in 1999, while acting as AFL commander. The
International Crisis Group writes that the AFL was reduced practically to the point of non-existence by fall 2001, by which time a total of 4,000 personnel had been retired. The
Second Liberian Civil War originated in clashes in April 1999 but was not a major threat to Taylor until 2000–01. However, on the government side the AFL played only a minor role; irregular ex
National Patriotic Front of Liberia militias backed by more privileged Taylor partisans such as the
Anti-Terrorist Unit saw most of the fighting.
Rebuilding the AFL in 2008 Part 4 (Articles VI and VII) of the August 2003
Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended the Second Liberian Civil War addressed security sector reform. It declared that future recruits for the new AFL would be screened for their fitness for service as well as prior human rights violations, that the new force would be ethnically balanced and without political bias, and that the new force's mission would be to defend national sovereignty and "in extremis" respond to natural disasters. who claimed to have fought for former president
Charles Taylor or the two rebel groups,
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) or the
Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). That year most former AFL elements were concentrated at Camp Schiefflin. In 2005, the United States provided funding for
DynCorp International and Pacific Architects & Engineers,
private military contractors, to train a new 4,000-man Liberian military. DynCorp was made responsible for individual training and PA&E unit training. In June–July 2005 the projected force strength was reduced to 2000 men. DynCorp and the U.S. Embassy scrutinized the personnel for the new armed forces thoroughly. Recruits had to pass a literacy test, an aptitude test, a drug test and an HIV test, and their names and faces were put on posters which are distributed to try to make sure none have a history of war crimes or other human rights violations. A new batch of 500 screened personnel started to arrive at the Camp Ware base at VOA
Careysburg, inland from Monrovia, for initial training in early November 2007, joining 608 others who had graduated earlier. The Minister of Defense that President
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appointed in early 2006,
Brownie Samukai, had a good public reputation. officer speaks to AFL troops during a 2009 training exercise. There appears to be some lack of coordination, at least according to
The Wall Street Journal, between the
Ministry of National Defense and
DynCorp, who is training the new army. The newspaper said in an August 2007 report: Mr. Samukai also complains that he feels sidelined from the formation of an army that, as defense minister, he is supposed to oversee. Neither the State Department nor DynCorp will let him see the company's contract, for instance. And the U.S. insists that instead of talking directly to DynCorp managers, he go through Major Wyatt [chief of the
Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia] on all matters related to the training. Whether well regarded or not, Samukai has been accused of misusing his power; there have been allegations that he has ordered soldiers to manhandle other senior Liberian government officials—the Comptroller General of the Ministry of Finance in August 2008. A 2007 RAND study, “Making Liberia Safe”, proposed an integrated security concept to guide force development; it urged the Liberian government, the United States and the United Nations to coordinate detailed force plans, establish a small police quick‑reaction unit and a small Coast Guard, build court and corrections capacity, and consolidate and appropriately vet the multiple police, customs and intelligence services. "At present, nonstate external and internal threats are more likely than threats from neighboring states. The size of the AFL is less important than that it be superior in quality and capability to foreseeable threats." On January 11, 2008, a total 485 soldiers graduated from Initial Entry Training class 08–01. The addition of this third class of soldiers, consisting of 468 men and 17 women, raised the total strength of the AFL from 639 to 1,124. As the new Liberian force developed, UNMIL started winding down its initially 15,000 strong peacekeeping mission; by 2008 the force had been reduced to 11,000. In the interim buildup period, President Johnson-Sirleaf decided that a Nigerian officer would act as the Command Officer-In-Charge of the new armed forces. Major General
Suraj Abdurrahman succeeded the previous incumbent, Lieutenant General
Luka Yusuf, in early June 2007; Lieutenant General Yusuf had been posted home to Nigeria to become
Chief of Army Staff. Luka had succeeded the previous Liberian Chief of Staff, Kpenkpa Y. Konah, in 2006. In mid-July 2008, five reinstated AFL officers returned from the Nigerian Armed Forces Command and Staff College after training there. These officers include Lt Cols. Sekou S. Sheriff, Boakai B. Kamara, Aaron T. Johnson, Daniel K. Moore and Major Andrew J. Wleh. Subsequently, Aaron T. Johnson was promoted to colonel and confirmed by the Liberian Senate as Deputy Chief of Staff of the AFL, immediately subordinate to General Abdurrahman. A number of the current senior AFL officers have been drawn from the ranks of the previous 1993–94 Interim Government of National Unity paramilitary police force, the 'Black Berets.' Facility reconstruction has not been limited to VOA/Camp Ware and Schiefflin/EBK. The Chinese Government offered in 2006 to rebuild Camp Tubman in
Gbarnga, and the new facility was opened in April 2009. There is also a plan to rebuild Camp Todee in
Todee District, upper
Montserrado. The Barclay Training Center (BTC) was handed back to the Government of Liberia on July 31, 2009, at a ceremony attended by the Minister for National Defense and the United States Ambassador after four years of management by
DynCorp. In October 2009, the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and the U.S. state of Michigan established a
State Partnership Program (SPP) relationship through the
Michigan National Guard. The partnership has focused on professional military education, disaster response, engineering support, and institutional capacity-building, and remained active as of 2026, marking over 15 years of sustained cooperation.
Peacekeeping operations In 2013, the AFL deployed a platoon to the
United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), marking the first time the force had operated abroad since the
United Nations Operation in the Congo in the early 1960s. Initially deployed under Nigerian command, the Liberian contingent later operated under Togolese command following Nigeria’s withdrawal. Despite early logistical challenges, AFL personnel conducted patrols, base security, and VIP escort duties. The initial deployment consisted of a 45-person platoon, which rotated regularly between 2013 and 2016. Beginning in 2017, Liberia increased its contribution to approximately 75 personnel, and expanded to a company-sized element of approximately 105 personnel by 2018, along with additional military observers and staff officers. On May 3, 2017, Corporal Sheriff Ousmane became the first Liberian soldier killed during the mission when insurgents fired mortars into a United Nations base near Timbuktu. Seven additional Liberian personnel were wounded in the attack, along with a Swedish peacekeeper. Over the course of the mission, the AFL deployed multiple rotations to Mali, ultimately reaching eight rotations in total. Liberia continued to contribute personnel to MINUSMA until the mission’s drawdown and closure in December 2023. The Mali deployment marked a significant milestone in the AFL’s postwar reconstitution, demonstrating its return to international peacekeeping operations. In January 2019, the Ministry of National Defense announced plans to deploy a platoon-sized contingent of AFL personnel to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Liberia subsequently contributed personnel to UNMISS primarily through deployments of police officers serving as United Nations Police (UNPOL), rather than military units. == Structure ==