government reported that arms had been delivered to the rebels by air, and Western intelligence proved that some of the arms used in the rebels' initial attacks had come from the Burkinabé Presidential Guard stocks. However, both International Crisis Group and Western intelligence reports gave less credence to Gbagbo's further accusation that Burkinabé troops had participated directly in the initial attacks. MPIGO and MJP were reported to have received assistance from the Liberian government, reflecting a partial spillover of the Liberian Civil War, and, according to a March 2003 report by Global Witness, 90% of MJP and MPIGO forces were Liberian or Sierra Leonean mercenaries, many of them ex-members of Charles Taylor's Revolutionary United Front. Government forces President Laurent Gbagbo was supported by loyalists in the state security services and National Armed Forces (FANCI, Forces armées nationales de Côte d'Ivoire). In addition, he reportedly recruited foreign mercenaries, some of whom had previously been affiliated with the South Africa-based Executive Outcomes, and including a number of Belarusian pilots. Various civilian militias supported Gbagbo and his political party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI, Front populaire ivoirien) – the most important among them was the Young Patriots' Pan-African Congress (COJEP, Congrès panafricain des jeunes et des patriotes). In 2005, Human Rights Watch reported that the Ivorian government had also recruited foreign combatants, primarily from Liberia, and including child soldiers. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between 2002 and 2004, the Ivorian government purchased arms from Angola, Belarus, Bulgaria, Israel, Romania, and Ukraine. International forces The French military launched its intervention in Ivory Coast, Opération Licorne, on 22 September 2002, three days after the start of the war, with an initial focus on protecting French and other foreign nationals. Originally a contingent of 700, Opération Licorne comprised 4,000 troops by July 2003. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) deployed its own peace force on 18 January 2003. The United Nations (UN) had an official presence in Ivory Coast from 6 February 2003, when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Albert Tévoédjrè as his Special Representative in Ivory Coast. From 27 June 2003, Tévoédirè was supported by the UN Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (MINUCI, Mission des Nations unies en Côte d'Ivoire), established by Resolution 1479 of the UN Security Council, with a mandate to monitor implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Accord. The following year, Security Council Resolution 1528 replaced MINUCI with an