African team arrives in Liberia

9.20am

MONROVIA - A West African military reconnaissance team arrived in Liberia's besieged capital Monrovia on Wednesday to prepare for the planned deployment of regional peacekeepers.

"We've come here to see the situation on the ground...and then get back to look at our plan," Nigerian Brigadier-General Festus Okonkwo, who will head the peacekeeping force, told reporters at Monrovia's international airport.

The team is expected to stay in Liberia until Saturday, a senior official from the regional ECOWAS bloc told Reuters.

ECOWAS has said two battalions of 1,500 Nigerian troops are on standby to go to Liberia, where fighting between government troops and rebels bent on toppling President Charles Taylor has killed hundreds of civilians in Monrovia over the past 12 days.

However, no precise date has been set for the deployment, which has been hampered by haggling over who should pay for it and ongoing battles on the ground.

ECOWAS officials said the team was meant to work out the logistics of the deployment and would not go beyond Monrovia.

Fighting has also raged since Monday in the West African country's second city of Buchanan, some 100 km (60 miles) southeast of Monrovia's airport.

- REUTERS