Liberia battles raise death toll

Explosions rocked Liberia’s capital today as rebels and government forces battled at key crossings leading toward President Charles Taylor’s downtown stronghold.

Shells slamming into tin-roof homes filled with trapped families killed at least 16 people.

Liberia’s US ambassador appealed to insurgents to lift their bloody eight-day siege of Monrovia and withdraw – even as government commanders and residents reported the rebels to be stepping up their drive into the city.

The main rebel movement “needs to show that they have regard for the people of Liberia, that it is not indifferent to the great human suffering that is taking place here,” Ambassador John Blaney said at the heavily guarded US Embassy.

Insurgents overnight somehow bypassed one of three embattled bridge, Stockton Bridge, leading from the rebel-held island port to mainland Monrovia, government field officers said.

Rebels are pressing a two-month campaign to take Monrovia, a cut-off, bloodied, disease-ridden and hungry city of at least 1.3 million residents and refugees. Their goal: driving out Taylor, a former warlord behind nearly 14 years of ruinous conflict in the once prosperous West African nation.

Taking northern neighbourhoods around Stockton Bridge would give rebels a foothold on the mainland, from which they could battle their way toward encircling government-held downtown.

Heavy fighting also raged at a second span, the Old Bridge, linking the port and downtown.

At midday, area residents saw rebels on the bridge – contested territory throughout the siege.

Government forces quickly pushed back, briefly fighting their way amid machine gun and grenade blasts into the southern tip of Bushrod Island, where the port is located.

“Rebels are attacking us,” leading government commander Gen. Benjamin Yeaten said by telephone. “I’m on the bridge as I’m talking to you, and my forces are moving.”

By nightfall, both sides were back in their original positions, fighting for control of the bridge, residents said.

Taylor claimed on Saturday that as many as 1,000 people have died since rebels launched their third attempt in two months to take the capital. Aid workers place the week’s toll at about 400.

Blaney, speaking to reporters at the embassy, urged the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy movement to pull back to the natural boundary of Po River, six miles outside the capital.

The withdrawal would open up the port and camps outside the refugee-choked city for vitally needed food and aid.

Sekou Conneh, the rebels’ civilian chairman, told AP they would retreat only when peacekeepers were in place.

“We agree to fall back, but we want the peacekeepers to come,” Conneh said. “We don’t want to hand over the port to Charles Taylor.”