President Charles Taylor submitted his resignation and tapped his vice president to take over the reins of the embattled government as throngs cheered the first West African peacekeepers to enter Liberia's besieged capital.
Vice President Moses Blah said the handover is planned for Monday, but rebel leaders warned that they will not allow any ally of Taylor's to hold power while the war-torn country tries to find a way out of 14 years of bloodshed.
PHOTO: AP
Outside Monrovia, peacekeepers reportedly seized a new weapons shipment from Libya that apparently was destined for government forces in violation of a UN arms embargo.
Residents and refugees poured into the streets on Thursday when more than 100 Nigerian soldiers in the peacekeeping mission drove into the capital.
Nigerian Lieutenant Colonel Amos Nudamajo would not say when the force would begin regular patrols of the city, saying only that would happen "at the appropriate time."
The force's first foray into Monrovia came as Congress formally endorsed Taylor's letter of resignation on Thursday and he designated the 56-year-old Blah to succeed him.
Blah said he received a telephone call on Thursday morning from Taylor, who said he would be sworn in as president Monday.
Taylor indicated he would go into exile "very shortly," said Blah, who was a feared Taylor ally in the 1988-96 civil war that killed 100,000 people and put Taylor in power over a nation left in ruins.
However, Taylor has repeatedly hedged on promises to go into asylum in Nigeria.
His government said that would happen only after enough foreign peacekeepers were on the ground -- and if a war crimes indictment by a UN-backed tribunal is dropped.
"Nigeria has chosen to ignore that court, and I will be going to Nigeria," Taylor said in a CNN interview. "They've all seen the political nature of this ... they see no reason why I should be harassed. I will go to Nigeria, God willing."
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Taylor would not get out of the war crimes charges.
"If Taylor leaves Liberia, as we expect him to do in the very near future, and is given asylum in Nigeria, this does not remove the indictment in any way," Powell said.
Rebel leaders reached by phone at the scene of peace talks in Accra, Ghana, said the rebels would observe an often-violated June 17 ceasefire pact for Monrovia, but insisted they would not accept Taylor's allies holding power.
Kabineh Ja'neh, a leader of the rebel group besieging Monrovia, said his men "will not recognize Blah or any other chosen representative of Taylor's criminal empire."
The UN is drawing up an ambitious plan to rebuild Liberia's infrastructure and government which would see the creation of a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force to disarm all the warring factions, The Washington Post said yesterday.
The plan, which is being discussed by chief UN envoy Jacques Paul Klein with potential troop donors and the US, would also call for arresting Taylor if he does not leave the country soon.
The new UN mission would move into Liberia in November, replacing the West African force, and reach full strength by February, said the daily, quoting US and UN officials.
A potentially major stumbling block to the UN project is its financing, since the US would have to provide one fourth of its projected cost of US$500 million, a senior UN official said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of