U.S. Flies 825 Out of Monrovia : Liberia: Helicopters evacuate foreigners from capital. In neighboring Sierra Leone, the head of the peacekeeping force meets chiefs of staff.

U.S. helicopters evacuated 825 foreigners from Monrovia on Saturday in the biggest airlift out of Liberia’s war-torn capital in a single day.

U.S. officials said 550 of those flown to four U.S. warships offshore were Lebanese. They were to be flown today to Freetown, the capital of neighboring Sierra Leone.

An Iraqi was among the other nationalities evacuated by the United States, officials said.

A Middle East Airlines Boeing 707 also flew into Freetown on Saturday to fetch a first batch of 200 Lebanese evacuees and take them back to the relative safety of Beirut. Lebanese officials said the airliner brought a medical team to handle any ill or injured people.

Over the past two weeks, U.S. helicopters have pulled nearly 1,500 foreigners out of Monrovia.

Two hundred more Lebanese, including Beirut’s ambassador, were to leave Monrovia today in a road convoy headed east for the Ivory Coast. They were trapped in an eastern suburb of Monrovia, the capital, controlled by Charles Taylor’s rebel movement.

Fighting prevented them from reaching Mamba Point, where the U.S. Embassy is located and where troops of Taylor’s rival, Prince Johnson, hold sway.

Gen. Arnold Quainoo of Ghana, who heads a multinational African peacekeeping force marshaling in Freetown, met chiefs of staff Saturday.

He told them that “effective execution of our mission depends on one main principle, positive neutrality. We must do nothing to suggest that we are taking sides. The political situation in Liberia has to be resolved by the people of Liberia.”

The force of about 3,000 men includes troops from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Togo and Gambia and was organized by the Economic Community of West African States.

The peacekeeping force will try to impose a cease-fire between troops of President Samuel K. Doe, holding out in central Monrovia, and the rival factions of Taylor and Johnson.

Taylor opposes foreign intervention in the eight-month civil war, but Quainoo said he would fly to the Gambian capital of Banjul on Monday to meet with Taylor to urge him to agree to a cease-fire and to allow the peacekeeping force to police Monrovia.

The peacekeeping force has invited Liberian political leaders to Banjul on Aug. 27 to discuss formation of an interim government that would organize elections within 12 months.

African diplomats said the force is likely to move into Liberia before then, whether or not Quainoo gets Taylor to agree to a cease-fire. Doe and Johnson already have accepted the principle of a truce.

Quainoo flew to Banjul earlier in the week in an unsuccessful attempt to meet with Taylor, who did not show up after a report by his National Patriotic Front of Liberia that he had been slightly hurt in a car accident.