Liberia Faction Chief Threatens U.S. Marines

Rebel leader Prince Johnson, who holds several foreign hostages, said today that he will attack American Marines at the U.S. Embassy if U.S. or other foreign troops do not intervene to end Liberia’s civil war.

A group of West African countries meeting in Gambia announced today that they will send a joint military task force to Liberia, but they did not say when it would be mobilized.

Some of the 235 Marines airlifted into Monrovia to evacuate Americans and other foreign nationals on Sunday took up defensive positions within the walled U.S. Embassy compound after Johnson’s threat.

Johnson also presented eight foreign hostages to reporters and said he would not free them until a peacekeeping force comes to this West African nation torn by a 7-month-old tribal conflict in which 5,000 people have died.

The hostages shown included one American, identified as Chris Mendes, 27, a mining engineer from Sacramento; three Britons; two Germans; a Dutch national, and an Argentine. Johnson has pledged not to harm them, but said he would hold them until an outside force arrives.

Johnson, who killed a relief worker Friday who he said was selling rice to Monrovia’s starving citizens, said he had killed one Liberian congressman for spying and would kill another.

The hostages were abducted Monday night from Hotel Africa, on the northwestern outskirts of Monrovia.