Blair's Africa tour moves on to Sierra Leone

Tony Blair's tour of Africa has moved on to Sierra Leone, where Britain's military intervention is seen as one of the prime minister's strongest legacies.

The prime minister sent British troops to the country in 2000 when brutal rebel forces threatened to overwhelm the country's government.

A swift turnaround in the military position was seen as a major justification of Blair's doctrine of 'liberal interventionism'.

Speaking during his visit to the country, Blair defended the UK's military invention.

"The countries in this area are intrinsically linked together. If we end up with instability in Sierra Leone, Liberia would never have got on its feet. The trouble may have spread into Guinea," he said.

"We could have had a situation where the whole of the countries in this part of Africa were run by gangster regime, plundering the country, killing people; a situation of tragedy it's almost impossible to imagine.

"Had we not intervened here we would have been unable to set Africa's beneficial path going.

"If we hadn't decided to make that intervention [then] not just this country but the countries of the whole of this area would have been adversely affected."

The UK remains a major aid donor to the country, although it still languishes at the bottom of international league tables.

During his visit Blair saw a display by the army and police force, as well as participating in talks with President Kabbah and Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Sierra Leone is set to hold presidential elections this August, something a spokesman for Blair said was only happening "because of continuing engagement from countries such as ourselves".

On Tuesday the British leader visited Libya for talks with leader Mummar Gaddafi.

And he will conclude his tour of the continent later this week with a visit to South Africa, where he is set to deliver a major policy speech on the future of Africa.