Nigeria has decided to send as early as next week two battalions of troops to Liberia, a move that would convince President George W Bush to send US troops and logistics support to the West African state, a UN official said yesterday.

Olara Otunnu, the UN special envoy for children in was situations, said defence ministers of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) concluded a meeting in Dakar on Wednesday at which Nigeria agreed to send two army battalions with a total of up to 1 400 troops.

Otunnu said a US military assessment team was present at the Dakar meeting to discuss possible US participation in the peace force in Liberia. Mali, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Morocco and possibly Ethiopia have also agreed to send troops. But Otunnu said, unlike Nigeria, armies in those countries are not well financed and do not have logistics to deploy troops to Liberia.

"They are waiting for the international community to provide support and have particularly made a request to the US to come and provide that support," Otunnu said, adding that the total Ecowas force to Liberia could be about 5 000 troops.

"The elements required by the US are now clear, and following the conversation in Dakar, I hope that the US can now make the definitive announcement very, very soon about its participation, contribution and the timeframe for that," said Otunnu, who recently visited Monrovia and other West African capitals.

He said the situation in Monrovia was "horrendous" following fierce fighting between government and rebel troops in the past days. President Charles Taylor's government said more than 600 people have died in Monrovia in fighting since last Friday.

Otunnu said the rebels carried out a "massive" mobilisation of children and women into the war, with one of 10 children in Liberia now engaged in the fighting.

He said the UN had evacuated its staff from Monrovia as the fighting threatened the peace process in neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone.

At the Dakar meeting, Otunnu said Ecowas has agreed for the first time to include in its peacekeeping operation "child protection advisers", whose responsibility is to find ways to assist or prevent children from being forced into fighting role.

He said those advisers will be selected among UN agencies like the UN Children's Fund (Unicef). – Sapa-DPA.