Gambia Armed Forces

The Gambia Armed Forces, also known as the Armed Forces of The Gambia, are the national military of the Gambia, a small West African country almost entirely surrounded by Senegal. They consist of three branches: the Gambia National Army, the Gambia Navy and the Republican National Guard. A Gendarmerie served from the 1980s until 1996, when it passed to the Ministry of the Interior. At independence in 1965 security rested with a police Field Force, and a separate military came into existence only after the Gambia Armed Forces Act 1985, in the period of the short-lived Senegambia Confederation. A navy was formed in 1997 and a national guard was established by an act of 2008. The president is commander-in-chief, with practical control exercised by the Chief of the Defence Staff. Gambian troops have mostly served in peacekeeping missions abroad, including Liberia and Darfur, and its history includes the mutinies of 1991 and 1992 and the coup of 1994.