left on Sunday in a Malian air force Hercules plane from Lungi International Airport. „The withdrawal of the first batch of 150 Malian soldiers was due to the fact that the Malian government now believes peace has returned to Sierra Leone,“ the official said. „The number of Malian troops should be cut down to reduce the financial cost and also to reduce the pressure the (Mali) government is facing from the opposition to pull out.“ Mali had 428 soldiers in the regional ECOMOG force. The official said another 100 were due to leave in about two weeks. Eventually, only a skeleton contingent would be left to help with the disarmament and demobilisation of former rebels. The rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) signed a peace agreement with the government on July 7. Its fighters are to disarm and the RUF will have four ministers in a new government. The Malian contingent arrived in Sierra Leone in February, after the rebels almost overran ECOMOG in a devastating attack on Freetown in January. ECOMOG sources say that up to 10 Malians were killed during a rebel attack on the town of Port Loko soon after, which made their participation in ECOMOG unpopular back home. The ECOMOG force numbers about 12,000. The bulk of the troops and the leadership are Nigerian. Guinea has contributed about 2,000 soldiers and Ghana several hundred.