Operation Palliser was a British Armed forces operation in Sierra Leone in 2000 under the command of Brigadier (now General Sir) David Richards. Initially, its scope was limited to evacuation of non-combatants only. Subsequently, apparently on the initiative of Richards, it expanded into critical support of the government and eventually resulted in the end of the civil war.

In spring 2000, rebel activity in Sierra Leone was escalating significantly with the rebel forces of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) presenting a credible threat to the capital, Freetown.

On 7 May 2000, the Permanent Joint Headquarters directed the deployment of a Joint Task Force Headquarters. The JTF comprised the UK Spearhead Battalion: elements 20 Fd Sqn Royal Engineers, 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, (minus its A-company, but reinforced by D-company 2 PARA and elements of 2 PARA's support company), the Pathfinder Platoon, the Special Air Service, elements of the Special Boat Service and Royal Air Force Hercules were deployed to conduct a Non-combatant evacuation of UK, EU, and Commonwealth citizens. Following the evacuation the main aims were to keep control of the airport, patrol Freetown and allow UN supplies to be flown in to the country safely.

The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002) began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years, enveloped the country, and left over 50,000 dead.

During the first year of the war, the RUF took control of large swathes of territory in eastern and southern Sierra Leone, which were rich in alluvial diamonds. The government's ineffective response to the RUF, and the disruption in government diamond production, precipitated a military coup d'état in April 1992 by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). By the end of 1993, the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) had succeeded in pushing the RUF rebels back to the Liberian border, but the RUF recovered and fighting continued. In March 1995, Executive Outcomes (EO), a South Africa-based private military company, was hired to repel the RUF. Sierra Leone installed an elected civilian government in March 1996, and the retreating RUF signed the Abidjan Peace Accord. Under UN pressure, the government terminated its contract with EO before the accord could be implemented, and hostilities recommenced.

Charles Palliser (born 1947) is a best-selling novelist, American-born but British-based. His most well-known novel, "The Quincunx", has sold over a million copies internationally. He is the elder brother of the late author and freelance journalist Marcus Palliser.

Born in New England he is an American citizen but has lived in the United Kingdom since the age of three. He went up to Oxford in 1967 to read English Language and Literature and took a First in June 1970. He was awarded the BLitt in 1975 for a dissertation on Modernist fiction. From 1974 until 1990 Palliser was a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He was the first Deputy Editor of The Literary Review when it was founded in 1979. He taught creative writing during the Spring semester of 1986 at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 1990 he gave up his university post to become a full-time writer when his first novel, The Quincunx, became an international best-seller. He teaches occasionally for the Arvon Foundation, the Skyros Institute, the University of London, London Metropolitan University, and Middlesex University. He was Writer in Residence at the University of Poitiers in 1997.