Heavy fighting continued around two bridges leading to the heart of Monrovia and mortar rounds landed in the city's central diplomatic quarter while President Taylor reaffirmed that he would step down, but not specifying when. A conflicting account had Taylor claiming that more than 1000 people had been killed during the latest rebel attack on the capital and warning that there would be bodies all over the city, if he was not allowed to stay in power. Taylor's speech came only hours after a mortar shell smashed into a Monrovia church, killing three refugees and wounding dozens more.
The internationally backed War Crimes Tribunal in Sierra Leone has given the green light for mercenaries to arrest President Taylor, if they can raise their own funds for the operation and deliver him across the border. The special war crimes court was set up jointly by the Sierra Leone Government and the United Nations to prosecute those responsible for atrocities during Sierra Leone's civil war. They issued an indictment against Taylor last month.
The British-US military company Northbridge Services Group submitted a $4.8
million plan to arrest Taylor, but the special court turned it down. Northbridge claims that they were privately told to try and raise the money from foreign governments, particularly the United States. Northbridge was last in the news back in early May, when their threat to send three C-130s full of ex-SAS troops down to break up a Nigerian oil workers occupation of four offshore rigs was successful. The Nigerians let their 100 hostages go without any 'mercenaries' ever appearing.
While the practicalities haven't been worked out yet, the very idea that 'private military companies' are now politically correct is a far cry from just a decade ago, when the very idea of mercenaries was enough to make headlines scream with indignation.
During the night, LURD units broke out of their Bushrod Island positions and crossed the Stockton Creek bridge, gaining access to Somalia Drive (the ring road that loops round the northern outskirts of the city). - Adam Geibel
