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Libe
rian rebels Wednesday claimed to have taken more key towns and
said they will intensify military pressure on President Charles
Taylor to quit the seaside capital of Monrovia.
The rebels added that they had not agreed to a ceasefire during
recent peace talks.
"We are controlling the Grand Cape Mount county," west of Monrovia,
Sekou Damate Conneh, chairman of the Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel group, told AFP over
satellite telephone.
"We have taken over Roberts Port and we are on the whole border
with Sierra Leone," he said, adding that his men controlled the
road to the neighbouring country.
Conneh said the rebels had taken the northern town of Kakata and
would wrest control of the nearby strategic town of Gbanga in a
week.
"We are trying to control the surroundings of Monrovia to put
pressure, a military pressure, on Taylor's regime because we don't
want to enter the town of Monrovia and create bloodshed," he
said.
Conneh stressed that the rebels, fighting Taylor since 1999, had
not agreed to a truce during weekend peace talks in the Sierra
Leone capital Freetown brokered by the Economic Community of West
African States regional bloc.
"The agreement was to continue the dialogue to avoid bloodshed in
Monrovia," he said, adding that the rebels were expecting an
invitation to fresh peace parleys in the Malian capital
Bamako.
On February 4, Conneh issued Taylor a week to clear out of
Monrovia, sparking panic in the capital. But the government managed
to calm these fears and claimed to have retaken Tubmanburg, a
strategic town 60 kilometres (38 miles) from Monrovia, from the
rebels.
There was no independent confirmation if rebels held surrounding
areas of the capital -Sapa-AFP.
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