Rebels threaten to take embattled Liberian capital

MONROVIA, Liberia -- Rebels pushed within six miles of Monrovia on Friday and threatened to overrun the capital unless President Charles Taylor ends attacks on the insurgents. Liberians pleaded Friday for Americans to come to their rescue.

The government accused the insurgents of attacking its positions, while the rebel movement Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy said they were being pushed into a corner.

Defense Minister Daniel Chea said the rebels overran a key military base late Thursday and pressed on to within six miles of Monrovia on Friday.

"It is a volatile situation because there is a serious exchange of fire going on there between them and us," Chea told reporters at Po River Bridge -- just hours before it reportedly fell to the insurgents.

Chea's fighters included teenagers in T-shirts and flip-flops, armed with taped-up AK-47s and grenade launchers.

The rebels claimed the government had instigated the fighting.

"Taylor forces keep attacking our positions. We are now informing the Liberian people and the international community that should such unprovoked attacks continue, we will have no recourse but to retaliate with all-out force to overrun Monrovia," the rebel movement said in a statement.

At peace talks in nearby Ghana the tone was equally firm.

"Taylor has to stop violating the cease-fire, if he doesn't, the chances we'll send our soldiers into Monrovia is very high," said Kabineh Ja'Neh, a high-ranking rebel negotiator.

Frightened residents sheltering at a teeming U.S. diplomatic compound clamored for international peacekeepers, promised under a repeatedly violated June 17 cease-fire.

"The more they stay away, the worse the situation gets," said Leo Massequoi, a 20-year-old refugee. "Do you know how many people we are losing in this war?"

West African nations have promised to send more than 1,500 troops to Liberia, a country founded in the 19th century by freed American slaves. But a joint verification team that is supposed to map out the rival sides' positions has been delayed for almost a month.

The force's Nigerian commander had been expected to collect team members and bring them to Monrovia on Friday, but his arrival was delayed for "logistical reasons," regional officials said.

The United States faces mounting international pressure to contribute to the force. But the U.N. special envoy to Liberia, Jacques Klein, said Thursday the United States would not decide whether to send troops to Liberia until the West Africans deploy.

President Bush has also tied any deployment of American troops to the departure of Taylor, a former warlord indicted for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Taylor, who has accepted an offer of asylum in Nigeria, has said he will only leave when peacekeepers arrive to ensure an orderly transition.

But rebels reiterated their fear Friday that any force that arrives before Taylor departs will only serve to strengthen his embattled regime.

Few in Liberia trust West African peacekeepers to do the job without the help of U.S. forces. When they deployed during Liberia's 1989-96 civil war, they engaged in systematic looting and became a fighting faction themselves, residents and human rights groups say.

"I believe the Americans should come first," said Randolph Blayon, 39, among some 10,000 refugees at the U.S. diplomatic compound, sheltering in rickety bamboo and tarpaulin tents that offer little protection against the season's heavy rains.

Fourteen years of on-again off-again fighting have followed Taylor's ride to power in 1989. Hundreds of thousands have been killed and many more displaced.