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[This article has been excerpted.]

By Jackson Kanneh

MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuter) – The West African ECOMOG intervention force in Liberia will bring in extra troops this week to help disarm the warring factions under the latest peace deal, its spokesman said Tuesday.

…continuous reports of factional fighting, in violation of a cease-fire, led the United States this week to wonder publicly whether warlords were serious about keeping the agreement, saying international donors were becoming sceptical.

The capital Monrovia is full of rumors…warlord Charles Taylor and Liberia Peace Council leader George Boley, both members of a ruling council set up under the agreement signed in Nigeria in August, plan to take the city by force.

Donors are due to meet in New York Friday for a U.N. conference to raise money for disarmament and demobilization.

Liberia, Africa’s oldest republic, was founded by black American in 1847. The civil war which started in 1990 has killed over 150,000 people, and displaced half the pre-war population of 2.4 million.

ECOMOG spokesman Frank Akinola told reporters Nigeria was sending more than 2,000 men to help raise ECOMOG numbers to 12,000 from 7,000 now. “…we are expecting the batch this week,” Akinola said.

From next month, ECOMOG will supervise the disarming of an estimated 60,000 militiamen.

Six West African countries have promised extra troops or military support to help implement the accord.

Military sources Monday said fighting was going on at two fronts in central Liberia between Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia and the ULIMO militia.

“Further outbreaks of violence anywhere in Liberia can only reinforce these doubts and could…damage the willingness of donors to make assistance available,” a statement released by the United States embassy said Monday.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Francis said in his Sunday sermon…any hasty ECOMOG deployment in the rest of the country would make Monrovia vulnerable to rebel attack.

“I must caution ECOMOG to await the additional troops from Nigeria, Ghana and Guinea before going into rebel-held areas, else they are coming to kill us again,” Francis said.

He spoke at a mass commemorating the murder of five American nuns by Taylor’s forces during the 1992 attack on Monrovia.

All of the main faction leaders are represented on the six-member ruling council or in the government which took office in September to steer the country to presidential and general elections next August.