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[This article has been excerpted.]

MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuter) – Thick black smoke rose from a barracks at the center of the Liberian capital Tuesday as Krahn militiamen repelled an assault from rival factions.

Both sides were using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, and gunmen from ULIMO, one of the rival factions, attacking the barracks on the Monrovia seafront had a heavy machinegun.

…20,000 civilians are trapped with Krahn fighters inside the red-painted complex, which has come under repeated attack since fighting started April 6.

In Lagos, Nigeria’s foreign minister Tom Ikimi said Nigeria was thinking of withdrawing its peacekeeping troops.

Reporters saw ULIMO gunmen, some armed with grenade launchers, advancing toward the complex through streets littered with decomposing bodies.

The fighting pits Krahn militiamen loyal to Roosevelt Johnson, who has been fired from the transitional government, against fighters of Charles Taylor and Alhaji Kromah, both members of the ruling Council of State set up last year.

Heavy…rain halted fighting, but shooting resumed Tuesday morning. At the foreign ministry in the Mamba Point district, a sniper from Taylor’s militia fired on the building to drive off looters inside.

Streets were littered with bullet casings, burned out cars and wreckage, and looters and gunmen have reduced many buildings to shells. Shops, offices, homes and United Nations and aid compounds have all been cleared out.

Beer-swilling teen-aged gunmen in stolen cars cruised the deserted streets. Some West African peacekeepers sat at street corners but made no attempt to intervene. Ikimi said the situation had reached the point where Nigeri was considering pulling its troops out.

Nigeria forms the backbone of the ECOMOG force that intervened at the beginning of the Liberian civil war in 1989 to try to stem the fighting. A dozen accords have failed to end the war, in which about 150,000 people have died.

Ikimi said leaders of countries with troops in Liberia would meet to review the situation at talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra…May 7 and 8. The 10,000-strong ECOMOG force includes 8,000 Nigerians. Ghana and Guinea each have 1,000 troops.