Mortar bombs and heavy gunfirekilled at least 11 people, including a pregnant woman, inLiberia's capital today as Nigerian peacekeepers said theywould deploy in the war-battered country on Monday. West African envoys arrived in Monrovia for talks withPresident Charles Taylor about his departure from Liberia butwere told they could not meet him because he had travelled outof the capital towards the battlefront.
Regional leaders want Mr Taylor, a former warlord who is underpressure from the United States to step down, to leave withinthree days of the peacekeepers' arrival.
Mr Taylor, indicted by a UN-backed war crimes court in SierraLeone, has promised to leave when peacekeepers arrive but hasbeen vague on timing. He has accepted a Nigerian asylum offer.
Meanwhile, the United States pushedfor a UN vote today authorizing a multinational force tointervene in Liberia to restore humanitarian aid and help endthe country's bloody civil war.
US Ambassador Mr John Negroponte toldreporters he wanted the Security Council to vote late todayor at the latest early on Saturday.The resolution lays the ground for any US involvement butdoes not spell out the role American soldiers would play.
In Monrovia, fighting between rebels determined to toppleTaylor and government forces raged despite the announcement thatforeign troops would soon move in.
Terrified people scurried for cover as mortar bombs fellaround the strategic Old Bridge leading to the heart of thecapital, where hundreds of people have been killed in two weeksof bloodshed. The besieged city is short of food and water.
A Reuters correspondent saw nine bodies, one of themdecapitated, around a house hit in a mortar attack. Some of thedead seemed to have been shot.
Residents said a mortar bomb crashed into another house,killing a man, a pregnant woman and her unborn child.
"The pregnant woman was hit and the baby came out. We haveburied them," resident James Jensen said by telephone.
A government commander said the rebels attacked governmentpositions in the morning but were driven back.
Senior West African military officials in Monrovia preparingfor the arrival of peacekeepers said the first 300 Nigeriantroops - part of a battalion stationed in Sierra Leone - wouldgo in on Monday, as requested by West African leaders.
"I have told them to get the men ready to deploy on Monday.I'm coming in on Monday and when I come in on Monday it'sbusiness," Brigadier-General Festus Okonkwo, Nigerian commanderof the peacekeeping force, said in Monrovia.
Another 476 Nigerian troops equipped with armoured personnelcarriers would deploy within nine days, the officials said,adding their aim would be to get control of the rebel-held port.Regional bloc ECOWAS plans to eventually have 3,250 troopson the ground.