Monrovia braces for fresh rebel attack as Bush meets Annan

The Liberian capital Monrovia braced for a fresh rebel attack on Monday as US President George Bush was due to meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York to discuss the sending of an international peacekeeping force to the troubled West African country. Troops loyal to Liberian President Charles Taylor said rebel forces were massing at Kley Junction, 38 km northwest of Monrovia, for a possible assault on the capital. Several hundred people were killed and over 100,000 were made homeless during two rebel attacks on the city last month. Tense government fighters were stopping all civilian vehicles at the Iron Gate checkpoint, 13 km northwest of the city on the road to Kley Junction on Monday. Iron Gate lies three km beyond St Paul's bridge, which links the mainland to Bushrod Island where Monrovia's deep water port is situated. Military commanders at Iron Gate told IRIN they had received intelligence reports that the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel group was massing forces at Kley for another possible attack on the capital. "We are not taking this lightly," one commander said. Defence ministry sources meanwhile told IRIN there had been fresh fighting on Monday with LURD at Boilu in Lofa County, in northern Liberia near the border with Guinea. They also reported clashes with a second rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) at Tapeta in Nimba county in north central Liberia. Defence Minister Daniel Chea told Reuters news agency that fighting was taking place with MODEL forces at the disputed port of Greenville. Diplomats said a fragile ceasefire agreed at peace talks in Ghana on June 17 was in danger of breaking down again because of a standoff between Taylor, who is refusing to step down and go into exile until international peacekeepers arrive, and LURD, which has threatened to attack any peacekeepers who land in Liberia before Taylor leaves. African and European governments have been pressing the United States to lead a 5,000-strong international intervention force in Liberia, which was founded by freed American slaves in 1847. But although a US military assessment team has spent several days gathering information in Liberia, President Bush has not yet said whether he is prepared to send US troops to the country. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has offered to grant Taylor asylum if he leaves power, made a one-day trip to Conakry on Sunday to discuss the situation with Guinean President Lansana Conte, who is widely seen as LURD's main backer. Obasanjo, who was accompanied by Abdulsalami Abubakar, the mediator of the Liberian peace talks, said afterwards that Conte had given his full support to moves by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to bring peace to Liberia. The country of three million people has suffered 14 years of near continuous civil war. "We will now move rapidly to prepare the ground for President Taylor to take advantage of the asylum offered him," Obasanjo told reporters after the meeting. One diplomat in Conakry told IRIN: "It's a good thing President Obasanjo has come to see General Conte face to face on this issue...I think Guinea has a lot of leverage over LURD that it can use to make the rebels give peace a chance in Liberia." Diplomats at the Liberian peace talks in Accra said the first 1,000 ECOWAS peacekeepers would probably arrive in Monrovia next week, but it was still unclear which country would provide the troops. Nigeria, which played a prominently role in previous peacekeeping operations in Liberia, last week put two army battalions on standby for possible deployment to the country. A Joint Verification Team is due to establish the ceasefire positions of the combatants on the ground before the first peacekeepers move in. However, the team, which includes government and rebel representatives as well as foreign military observers, has been stuck in Sierra Leone for the past week awaiting clearance to begin its work. Diplomatic sources said Nigeria had agreed to provide two helicopters to enable the team to move round Liberia freely. Security was visibly tighter in Monrovia on Monday. Government fighters patrolled Bushrod Island in pick-up trucks with flashing lights, causing panic among local residents. Other government fighters meanwhile threatened to cause chaos in Monrovia if they did not receive a promised compensation payment of around US $72 each, before Taylor's departure. "If they do not give our money we will turn this city upside down," said Jacob Mombo, the spokesman for a group of 250 pro-Taylor fighters who were still awaiting payment. The government and rebels have both blamed each other for sparking off the latest clashes. MODEL's military commander, General Boi Bleaju Boi, told international news agencies that government forces had instead repeatedly attacked his forces' positions in southeastern and central Liberia. Kabineh Jan'eh, LURD's chief representative at the peace talks in Ghana, meanwhile denied knowledge of recent fighting.