Rebels captured Liberia’s second-largest city today, defeating President Charles Taylor’s embattled forces on a new front and depriving him of his last significant port outside the besieged capital.

LIBERIAN rebels engaged in an all-out battle for the country’s war-torn capital said yesterday they have ordered their troops to stop fighting.

SOME 4,500 more American sailors and Marines have been ordered to position themselves closer to Liberia after at least 70 people were killed when heavy fighting engulfed the capital Monrovia yesterday.

HEAVY fighting engulfed the Liberian capital yesterday, killing at least 70 people as mortars pounded the city in an all-out battle between rebels and forces of President Charles Taylor.