LIBERIA: As Liberia's president is on the verge of leaving power, what fate will befall his ill-disciplined, drug-addicted, child soldiers, asks Declan Walsh.
Built like a brickhouse and smoking marijuana like a train, Col Mohammed Jabbie sank back into his chair beside a checkpoint 12 miles north of Monrovia.
He had killed many times, the muscular militiaman boasted with a watery smile, pointing to the machinegun by his feet.
"They call me Marabugu. It means 'the death squad commander who always implements orders'," he said, pulling hard on a joint.
But a decade of fighting was taking its toll, he said. "You think my only focus is the gun. But now we gotta do something. We gotta lift ourselves up for tomorrow," he said.
He was thinking of the younger generation. On the wall beside him, a nine-year-old boy gripped an AK-47 rifle and swung his legs lazily - the commander of the "Small Boys Unit".
Violence has become a way of life for teenagers under Charles Taylor, Liberia's warlord-cum-president.
But as his grip on power weakens, they are growing restless, demoralised and, perhaps, slipping out of control.
Mr Taylor has practically institutionalised the dark trade of child soldiering. When he started his rebellion in 1990, he used armed boys and girls to oust the government. When he later came to power, he used them to defend it.
They make for powerful, unquestioning fighters. Girded by drugs and alcohol, they use women's wigs, clothes and enemy bones to give them "supernatural" powers. Those who perish are easily replaced.
But now that Mr Taylor is apparently on the verge of leaving power, fears are rising about what will become of his ill-disciplined, drug-addicted and unpaid teenage fighters.
The US is considering sending peacekeeping troops to support a 3,000-strong west African force. Mr Taylor has promised to leave if they deploy.
His fighters, some not paid for months, have already hinted at a final spree of looting as a form of severance pay. They call it "Operation Pay Yourself".
"If those troops come and treat us bad then we go back to the bush. Then we will do some more killing," said a gunman from the "Jungle Lions" militia, a mesh of pink netting about his neck, at another roadblock. However, others said they yearned for a return to school.
"Firing a gun is not what I want to do any more," said Rufus Kollie, a 21-year-old with blue-painted toenails who admitted he could write only his name. "We want things to quieten down so I can learn."
President Bush's decision on deployment is expected as early as today, following a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York.
He may not see any great strategic value in sending soldiers to Liberia when he is already stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan. But analysts say that resolving the Taylor question could help stabilise all of west Africa.
If nothing is done to stop Liberia's war "consuming" its neighbours, said the International Crisis Group recently, "there will be further large-scale violence along much of the west African coastline".
Across the border in Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor helped start the Revolutionary United Front, whose signature atrocity was to hack off civilians' arms and legs. Across his other borders, in Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire, he also supported insurgencies.
And to circumvent United Nations sanctions he welcomed a gallery of unsavoury characters to Liberia, many of whom set up base there. They included guns dealers, diamond smugglers, mercenaries and, according to some reports, al-Qaeda financiers.
Those dealings are now coming home to roost. Guinea is supporting the main rebels, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which last month very nearly stormed Monrovia. Cote d'Ivoire is backing a smaller group to the east.
Between them they control 60 per cent of Liberia.
Both rebel groups are high on gunpowder but apparently low on political ideals. Their only aim appears to be to oust Mr Taylor from power. The LURD has threatened to break a fragile ceasefire and launch a fresh offensive if the US fails to send peacekeepers soon.
Now Monrovia is tense as the capital hangs precariously between a US-sponsored peace intervention and a fresh round of fighting.
Last month's combat claimed 500 lives.
And either way, it is unclear what Mr Taylor's demoralised young teenage troops will do.