Traumatised residents worried the fighting might return if the peacekeeping mission tarried. West Africa plans to send 1,000 to 1,500 troops in Liberia.

Liberia said rebels had attacked its forces at a key junction north of the capital while hopes for a speedy arrival of peacekeeping troops to the West African nation faded.

?I?m trying to verify the preliminary reports from the frontline commanders on the severity of the attack,? Defence Minister, Daniel Chea told Reuters. ?I think there is fighting going on in Klay right now, they are firing a lot of mortars.?

Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy(LURD), one of two rebel groups in Liberia battling to oust President Charles Taylor, said government forces had attacked them first and they had no plans to launch a third strike on the capital.

LURD fighters have twice punched into the suburbs of Monrovia since the start of June, each time attacking along the road leading from Klay junction to the coastal capital, 35 km further south.

Hundreds of civilians were killed in both attacks and the carnage in the capital has boosted calls for US and West African peacekeeping troops to intervene in a conflict that has boiled since 2000.

Annan warns of trouble ahead

Under US pressure to quit and controlling barely a third of the country, Taylor has agreed to leave only when troops arrive to prevent trouble from either the rebels or his own volatile fighters, already responsible for widespread looting.

?If I were to leave this country before the peacekeeping troops arrive in this city, I see disaster, I see mayhem, I see rape, I see total destruction,? he told a prayer meeting in a sports stadium housing thousands made homeless by the war. US President George W. Bush, has said a small US force might be sent along with a West African peacekeeping force, once the former warlord takes up a Nigerian offer of asylum.

West African leaders had hoped to get soldiers there by July 20 but UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan said peacekeeping troops might not arrive until well into August.

?We are dying here?

?I had hoped that they would do it at the latest by the end of this month but the latest calendar I saw seems to indicate it might be later than that and that is very worrying,? he said. ?The longer we delay the deployment, the more dangerous the situation gets,? Annan told reporters in New York. He said the current plan was for West Africa to send in a vanguard force of 1,000 to 1,500 troops. Once they had arrived, Taylor would leave the country for asylum in Nigeria and the United States and other reinforcements would move in.

Impatience was growing in the battered capital. ?Why are they waiting? Until the peacekeepers come we will be living in fear. We can?t do anything,? said Joseph Freeman, starting repairs on a house hit by a rocket last month.

Signs of normality are returning to the coastal city where in 1847 freed American slaves founded a republic meant to be a haven of liberty. But residents know the rebels raced from Klay junction to the suburbs in less than 24 hours last month. ?Let the peacekeepers come and save us. We want the American troops to come, but even if it is the West Africans then let them come quickly. We are dying here,? said Johnson Sherrif, one of the tens of thousands of displaced.

Matthew Tostevin