Associated Press
MONROVIA, Liberia ? Liberia?s president asked the United States on Monday to help stop clashes raging in the countryside despite a week-old peace deal, and urged West African peacekeepers to speed up their deployment as well.
President Moses Blah told The Associated Press that U.S. Ambassador John Blaney agreed late Monday to try to contact rebels in hopes of engineering a true cease-fire in the interior. U.S. Embassy officials, reached soon after Blah made his appeal, said they had no information.
?The Americans said they are trying to assist us out of the trouble,? Blah said. ?We are working on the situation seriously.?
Blah inherited power after President Charles Taylor resigned and flew into exile in Nigeria because of pressure from West African leaders, the United States and rebels laying siege to the capital. Taylor?s departure led to the cease-fire and the deployment of a West African peace force.
The West African peacekeepers, who arrived three weeks ago, have effectively brought peace to the capital, Monrovia. But refugees and combatants in the southeast and north have reported new clashes despite the cease-fire and a week-old power-sharing deal.
Blah said he had asked the West African peacekeepers to move out quickly. The peace force now has 1,500 Nigerian troops on the ground, and will eventually include 3,250 soldiers.
?I have told them that moving into the countryside (by the peacekeepers) has become a priority for this government,? he said.
Blah said force leaders assured him they would be able to deploy in the north after troops from Ghana arrive in the next few days.
Calls for help in the countryside come a day after a 150-strong U.S. Marine rapid reaction force pulled back to warships off Liberia. Liberians claimed they were being abandoned but the United States said it can respond more quickly from the ships.
Liberia was founded with U.S. government backing by freed American slaves in the 19th century, and the United States remains a leading influence here.
On Sunday, Liberian state radio reported that rebels with the country?s smaller insurgency, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, massacred 1,000 people in the northeast town of Bahn. But authorities and northeastern residents said they hadn?t witnessed any fighting.
Tegen Wanti, a Nimba County resident reached by satellite telephone Monday, said he knew nothing of the reported massacre but told The Associated Press that rebels with the group had killed at least 27 people on Friday in his home village, Florlay, near Bahn.
?The military situation here is more serious than thought in Monrovia. We have a terrible situation here,? said Wanti, a former Liberian diplomat.
Liberian radio had given no details nor sources for its report, beyond saying the massacre was carried out last week.
Liberian Information Minister Reginald Goodrich and Defense Minister Daniel Chea also said they had no information on any such massacre.
Nimba is near the border with Ivory Coast and Guinea, both countries widely accused of backing rebels in Liberia.