US marines fly into Monrovia amid heavy fighting

9.40am

MONROVIA - US Marines began flying into the American embassy compound in Liberia's capital after it was hit by a mortar bomb and witnesses said at least 50 people were killed as fighting raged between government forces and rebels.

The armed Marines leapt out to guard the compound as helicopter crews swivelled machineguns and kept the engines running. The HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters had hovered over the grey Atlantic and flown through driving rain before landing.

Rebels, fighting to overthrow President Charles Taylor, thrust into Monrovia on Monday and fired dozens of mortar bombs into the diplomatic quarter. One hit the US embassy.

Witnesses said an angry crowd laid 18 bodies, one of them headless, in front of the embassy and hurled abuse at the US mission for not intervening to end the fighting.

"If they do not value our lives and come and help us, then they should just leave," said Josiah Dogbah.

Taylor has promised to step down once foreign peacekeeping troops arrive, but US President George W. Bush says he will send a small force only after the former warlord, wanted by an international war crimes court in Sierra Leone, leaves Liberia.

At least five people were killed on Sunday when one mortar bomb landed a few hundred metres from the US embassy.

"The security situation is sufficiently unstable that we brought in reinforcements," said US Navy Lieutenant Commander Terrence Dudley.

US officials said 21 Marines were flown into the embassy compound today.

Two rebel factions hold about two-thirds of war-ruined Liberia, founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. The rebel groups have their roots in tribal hatreds inflamed by a civil war in the 1990s that killed at least 200,000 people.

Fighting surged back into the heart of Monrovia on Monday and stray bullets ripped into districts where thousands had sought shelter, hours after government forces vowed to fight to the death.

"Nobody retreats and nobody surrenders. This is a battle for survival," said army chief of staff General Benjamin D. Yeaten.

Residents said fighting was raging on the far side of bridges on the edge of the city centre.

Children, keeping their heads as low as they could to dodge bullets, ran with plastic buckets to the few sources of water. Blood poured from the face of one wounded boy.

Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), a rebel force that has been fighting to overthrow Taylor for more than three years, battled its way to the key bridges after a third assault on the capital in two months.

"Now the fighting is spreading and (civilians) are fleeing basically nowhere. There is no shelter, no food, no water," said Muktar Farah of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"If fighting continues for two days, this will be a humanitarian catastrophe."

In the battered city, people hope West African countries will send peacekeepers as soon as possible to try to end violence that has lasted on and off for 14 years.

West African countries are stepping up talks this week on sending a promised peacekeeping force. Chiefs of staff were due to meet in Senegal's capital Dakar on Monday. a regional official said.

Regional leaders had hoped to get troops in by July 20, but diplomats said neither funding nor logistics had been in place.

In Ghana, venue of talks between rebels and the government that were meant to agree on a transitional government, visiting US civil rights leader Al Sharpton said he planned to head to Monrovia on a humanitarian mission on Monday.

The chief mediator at the Ghana talks, Abdulsalami Abubakar, issued a statement calling for an immediate end to the fighting.

Meanwhile UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the United States today to deploy troops in turbulent Liberia "before it is too late" and warned rebel groups that any seizure of power would not be recognised by the international community.

Bush said the United States was working with regional nations, the Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS, to determine when peacekeeping troops will be able to move into Liberia, but he gave no numbers or date. Bush also pledged to work with the United Nations to support a cease-fire, an indication that the White House was waiting until fighting subsided.

"I think we can really salvage the situation if troops were to be deployed urgently and promptly," Annan told reporters.

He renewed his call to ECOWAS to send in peacekeepers without delay and urged the United States "to spare no effort to support this deployment and to announce its own decision on the deployment of US troops before it is too late."

"I believe that we need to pay urgent attention to the situation in Liberia, because Liberia today is poised between hope and disaster," Annan said.

- REUTERS