200 Foreigners Reported Killed in Liberia

Liberian rebels have killed 200 foreign civilians from the five nations that make up a West African task force in Liberia, the Ghana News Agency said Friday. The killings were in retaliation for the force’s presence there, the agency said.

A Ghana News Agency correspondent with the West African force said that rebels loyal to Charles Taylor began attacking the civilians shortly after the peace force arrived in Monrovia last Saturday to try to end the eight-month-old civil war.

Taylor opposes any intervention in the conflict.

There was no comment Friday from Taylor, who confirmed on Thursday that he was holding thousands of foreign citizens.

The task force fought its way to the eastern edge of Monrovia and took control of the capital’s airport Friday, diplomatic sources in Freetown said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The airstrip is big enough to handle military transport planes. Controlling it will make resupplying the task force much easier.

About 3,000 soldiers from Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia are under orders to end the conflict, which has turned into a tribal war.

The Spriggs Payne Airfield had been in the hands of President Samuel K. Doe’s troops but was under fire almost daily from Taylor’s rebels, camped less than a mile away.

The British Broadcasting Corp. said a spokesman for Prince Johnson, who broke with Taylor and leads a rival rebel group, called Friday to report that Doe’s troops broke an informal truce and attacked Johnson’s forces, killing 21 soldiers.

Doe and Johnson had both welcomed intervention by the West African force and declared a truce more than a week ago.

Also Friday, the peacekeeping force pushed eastward toward the embassies of three member states--Guinea, Ghana and Nigeria--which lay just behind rebel lines. Taylor’s rebels had rounded up thousands of Guineans, Ghanaians and Nigerians who had taken refuge at their embassies, saying they were being held for their own protection.

The Ghana News Agency quoted Ghanaian teacher Kwasi Kwateng, 36, as saying that rebels attacked a community of 2,500 Ghanaians living in Barnesville, about 3 1/2 miles from Monrovia’s port.

The agency gave no specifics about this or other alleged attacks, however, and there was no confirmation from other sources.

Kweku Egyir, 52, a Ghanaian who has lived in Liberia since 1963, said Taylor’s men were looking for Ghanaians and Nigerians in particular because their members of the African force had inflicted many casualties on the rebels.

Egyir said the rebels could identify Ghanaians and Nigerians by their accents and tribal scars. “The marks on our faces are called identity cards in this country,” he said.

Taylor invaded Liberia from Ivory Coast on Dec. 24, calling Doe’s government corrupt and pledging to overthrow it. His fighters quickly overran most of the West African country of about 2.5 million people, but they have been unable to dislodge troops loyal to Doe. Johnson’s rebels, who split with Taylor, have taken control of much of the capital.