Heavy fighting flares despite rebel cease fire

MONROVIA, Liberia -- An advance inspection team of a long-promised multinational peacekeeping force headed to Liberia's besieged capital Wednesday, as explosions and gunfire rocked Monrovia despite a new rebel pledge to cease fire.

Nigerian military commanders and other team members boarded a military plane in Ghana for Monrovia, where authorities said the team would assess conditions for a peace force pledged since rebels opened attack on the refugee-crowded capital in June.

'Too early'

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said it was "too early" to say whether U.S. Marines, expected to arrive off Liberia's coast in warships by Saturday, would take part on the ground if requested by West African nations leading the yet-to-materialize force.

President Bush repeated demands that a cease-fire be in place, and President Charles Taylor gone, before any U.S. involvement.

"I also want to remind you, the troop strength will be limited and the time frame will be limited, and we're working on that," Bush told a White House news conference Wednesday.

Residents rally

In Monrovia, residents in rebel-held parts of the bloodied capital held a rally to urge rebels to hold their ground until a peace force arrives -- and to appeal to American forces to hurry.

"Uncle Sam must come at once," declared the slogan on one banner, among the crowd of hundreds of participants.

Residents said they fear looting and reprisal attacks on civilians if rebels withdraw from the city ahead of peacekeepers. Taylor's forces, largely unpaid and notorious for rights abuses, have robbed homes nightly during the two-month siege of the capital.

A rebel commander, Maj. Gen. As Shaeriff, promised ralliers "we'll not move an inch from Monrovia until peacekeepers arrive."

Insurgents are pressing a three-year campaign to take the capital and oust Taylor, a Libyan-trained guerrilla fighter who launched the American-founded West African nation into near-constant conflict in 1989.

Troops on standby

The Bush administration has promised at least logistical support to what it says must be a West African- and U.N.-led peace effort.

West African leaders, taken aback by the surge in fighting and hopeful of more U.S. aid for the multimillion-dollar mission, have yet to deliver on what they have repeatedly described as imminent deployment.

The 12-member assessment team will work in Monrovia at least through Friday, West African bloc spokesman Sunny Ugoh said. Two Nigerian battalions, on standby as a vanguard force, will deploy only after the assessment, he said.

Peacekeeping promised

Six African countries -- Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Benin, Senegal and Togo -- have promised a total of 3,250 troops for an eventual 5,000-strong peacekeeping force, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Economic Community of West African States, the regional bloc arranging the force.

A rebel cease-fire, announced Tuesday under U.S. and West African pressure, brought not a pause in hostilities on Wednesday.

Rebel commanders on the ground accused Taylor's forces of provoking fighting with new attacks, and said a cease-fire was impossible under those conditions.

Contested bridges

Liberian military chief Gen. Benjamin Yeaten said government forces were battling attempted rebel drives across heavily contested bridges, which lead from the rebel-held port to the government's base in central Monrovia.

At one span -- Old Bridge -- teenage government fighters in bandanas, jeans and sneakers danced out onto the bridge, dodging bullets. Holding AK-47s over their heads, they fired wildly, then ran back for cover.

Mortars crashed into tin-roof shacks around the port, killing at least one person and wounding eight adults and a dozen children, aid workers said. Government forces fired volleys of rocket-propelled grenades.

"There is nothing like a cease-fire here," said Kate Wright, a downtown resident who spent a sleepless night cowering in a basement business center with neighbors.

Others slept on city beaches, feeling safer in the soft sand than in their own homes.

Stray bullets from fighting near two bridges whistled into neighborhoods around the U.S. Embassy -- scattering a crowd gathered there to draw water from a stream.

Civilians in need

Fighting has killed more than 1,000 civilians in the capital since June.

Cut off from aid and commercial warehouses at the rebel-held port and from the main water plant outside the city, the 1.3 million residents and refugees are running desperately short of food and clean water, and cholera and other diseases are rampant.

On Wednesday, the United States' top diplomat arrived in the region to urge West African nations to step up efforts for a cease-fire and peace force.

"The time has truly come to act," Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state for Africa, told officials in Guinea.

Guinea, blaming Taylor for cross-border insurgencies by Liberian fighters, is widely alleged to be backing the rebels now laying siege to the capital. Guinea denies it.