Sunday Times, REBELS have overrun a string of towns and villages in northeastern Liberia on the border with Ivory Coast, leaving scores of people killed or wounded, the defence ministry said today.
The rebels are also setting fire to villages in Nimba county, near the stronghold of the rebel Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL).
A MODEL legislator in the transitional government installed in mid-October denied the group's involvement in the fresh fighting, the latest unrest to erupt despite an August 18 peace accord.
News reports last week said the son of exiled former president Charles Taylor and the former deputy commander of the Liberian military were in the Ukraine negotiating for arms to launch a fresh attack from Ivorian territory.
The United Nations, which confirmed the reported fighting, has dispatched a fact-finding mission to the area.
Meanwhile, peacekeepers yesterday arrested five rebels of the main Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) as they ferried a huge cache of arms into Gardnersville, a former stronghold of militia loyal to Taylor.
Clashes have erupted sporadically in Liberia since the August power-sharing agreement to help ensure lasting peace in the west African state, which has been ravaged by two civil wars in the past 14 years
