President Charles Taylor submitted his resignation in favour of his vice president as throngs cheered the first West African peacekeepers to enter Liberia’s besieged capital, Monrovia.

Liberian rebels shattered a day-old pledge to cease-fire, lobbing mortars at neighbourhoods crowded with refugees and briefly capturing a key bridge in the war-ruined capital desperately short of food and water.

THE US has sent about 100 troops from Europe to west Africa to provide backup for a team assessing humanitarian needs in Liberia.