Hundreds killed in Liberia fighting

MONROVIA - Liberia says more than 600 civilians have been killed in a rebel onslaught on the capital and called for an arms embargo to be lifted so government troops could rebuff the attacks.

Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea said the soaring death toll in Monrovia had thrown into doubt pledges by President Charles Taylor to quit the West African nation once peacekeeping troops arrived.

"President Taylor had agreed in principle to leave and what we got in return was an onslaught on the city. It doesn't matter whether he leaves or not," Chea said.

Aid workers calculated about 100 civilians had been killed by mortar bombs, but Chea put overall civilian casualties at six times that figure.

Angry Monrovia residents demonstrated outside the US embassy on Monday, cursing Washington for failing to send soldiers to help end the bloodshed.

After a quiet night, heavy fighting erupted again on Tuesday morning around two key bridges leading to the city centre. The blast of mortars rang out across the terrified capital.

US President George W. Bush has said he would only consider sending troops to help a country founded by freed American slaves if Taylor, who is under UN sanctions for fomenting war in neighbouring countries, leaves the country.

Bush's administration has put the burden on West African states to act and regional chiefs of state were due to meet in Senegal's capital Dakar on Tuesday to piece together a plan to send peacekeeping troops to Liberia.

"It's time for ECOWAS to act," a US State Department official said, referring to the Economic Community of West African States bloc Washington wants to take the lead in any mission to end 14 years of almost non-stop war.

But Chea said peacekeepers were not the issue.

"It is no longer about asking for troops to come... What we want is for the international community to lift the arms embargo so we can defend ourselves."

A least one of Monday's mortar bombs raining on the capital hit the US embassy as the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) fighting to oust Taylor thrust into the capital for the third time in two months.

Irate Liberians dragged the bodies, one headless, of those killed at the embassy's nearby Graystone compound to the doorstep of the embassy on Monday, damning the United States for failing to act quickly and calling for immediate help.

"What has the trigger point got to be for someone to act? There were 22 killed inside Graystone alone," said Magnus Wolfe- Murray of British medical aid agency Merlin.

Scores of seriously wounded civilians flooded the capital's few hospitals.

Bush, facing calls for Washington to make its first African foray since a bloody exit from Somalia 10 years ago, said he was working with the United Nations to get government forces and rebels to return to a ceasefire agreed on June 17.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush had no timetable for a decision on whether to send US peacekeepers as the situation first needed to be understood fully.

A Pentagon spokesman said 4,500 US troops on three warships were being moved to the Mediterranean to be in a better position for possible use in Liberia, some seven to 10 days' sailing time away.

LURD and another rebel faction hold about two-thirds of Liberia and are bent on ousting Taylor, a former warlord. The rebel groups have their roots in tribal hatreds inflamed by a civil war in the 1990s in which at least 200,000 people died.

- REUTERS