Liberia agrees to pull troops from restive area

Liberian authorities have agreed to pull government forces from a main road connecting the newly calm capital Monrovia with the country’s volatile interior, paving the way for African peacekeepers’ first countryside deployment a day later, the defence minister said today.

The peacekeepers’ deployment, originally planned for yesterday, was postponed by Defence Minister Daniel Chea, who said it couldn’t take place until his fighters were sent elsewhere.