Norman Kempster
AT least three Liberian gunmen were killed by Marine guards this week when they tried to invade the US Embassy compound.
Monrovia was swept by factional fighting and lawlessness after the breakdown of a 10-day- old cease-fire.
The Pentagon said unidentified Liberian assailants fired on the embassy on three occasions, drawing return fire from the Marines. An official said three to six gunmen were killed and that at least one other was wounded.
One of the Marine defenders was slightly injured, possibly by debris kicked up by a bullet or by an expelled shell casing, the Pentagon said.
Assistant Secretary of State George Moose, the Clinton administration’s senior Africa expert, was in the embassy at the time, but there is no indication that he was the target of the attack, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said.
Moose arrived in Liberia earlier on Tuesday to attempt to reinvigorate the West African peacekeeping force that was demoralized by the faction fighting that preceded the brief cease-fire.
“We don’t believe that this represents any kind of a concerted attempt to challenge the position of the United States,” Burns said. “These were simply individuals who foolishly decided to fire on the embassy.”
Fighting in Liberia’s bloody, six-year-old civil war resumed on Monday when a cease-fire, imposed on April 19, collapsed.
Most American civilians and all but a skeleton staff at the embassy were evacuated earlier. However, a force of Marines remains in the vicinity, 276 of them posted at the embassy and another 2 939 on ships off the coast.
The Pentagon has insisted that the only purpose of the Marine deployment is to protect US citizens and property, although the force would seem to be much larger than necessary for that.
Moose is in Monrovia to confer with factional leaders and with officials of the West African peacekeeping force that virtually disintegrated when fighting flared early in April. The US government has offered $30- million in increased aid to the peacekeeping force, provided it demonstrates a new effectiveness.