Liberia Rebels Overrun Northern Part of Capital

Rebels overran most of northern Monrovia on Friday, pushing several hundred remaining government troops into a narrow strip of land on both sides of President Samuel K. Doe’s executive mansion.

Witnesses reported many government casualties, and shipping sources said two Liberian coast guard cutters were sunk in the port by gunfire.

The rebels, led by former Doe aide Charles Taylor, captured Monrovia’s 2-square-mile port area in the northern suburb of Bushrod Island. They advanced toward the two bridges linking the island to the center of the city.

Infiltrating rebel troops fought pitched battles with government soldiers who remained on Bushrod Island, the witnesses said.

The main bridge across the Mesurado River was littered with the bodies of government troops, the witnesses said.

In Washington, the State Department said the United States would not intervene to halt the two-day rebel offensive, the latest drive in the seven-month civil war.

“Our policy is to continue to urge both sides to participate in negotiations to prevent the further loss of life,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler told reporters.

She also said that there are no plans to dispatch a U.S. peacekeeping force once a new government is installed as requested by some Liberian officials, including Foreign Minister J. Rudolph Johnson, in a memo on Thursday.

Most Liberians would welcome U.S. help in “averting massive plunder and tribal revenge” and in having Doe evacuated from the country, said one of the Liberian signers, former U.N. Ambassador Winston Tubman.

But Nelson Taylor, the rebel leader’s brother, said the appeal for U.S. help “is just one of the scams that Doe is using to involve the U.S. in a battle with the citizens of Liberia.” He made the comments from his home in Providence, R.I.

In downtown Monrovia, every shop and office was closed Friday. Nervous troops ordered civilians off the streets in an unofficial daytime curfew.

A curfew remained in effect throughout the government-controlled areas.

Soldiers set up makeshift roadblocks at downtown intersections, firing wildly into the air to clear terrified civilians off the streets. Despite this, hundreds of frightened Monrovians gathered at the gates of the U.S. Embassy hoping to seek refuge, while scores of others broke into a U.S. Marine compound demanding food and shelter.

Representatives of the government and the rebels have met intermittently for peace talks in neighboring Sierra Leone, but the negotiations have failed to make any progress. The rebels have refused to compromise on their demand that Doe resign before any cease-fire can be implemented.

The rebels have accused Doe, who took power in a 1980 coup, of corruption, mismanagement and widespread human rights abuses.