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Liberia Mission Winds Down By Jim GaramoneAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2003 - The U.S. Joint Task Force that participated in stability operations in Liberia is pulling out, Defense Department officials said. Military forces from the Economic Community of West African States have succeeded in establishing a safe area so humanitarian operations in Liberia can proceed, said officials. American forces will leave the country Oct. 1. The USS Carter Hall and USS Nashville left the area over the past weekend with 1,550 soldiers and Marines. The USS Iwo Jima still is in the area and will return...

<p>American troops have started pulling out of the peacekeeping mission in Liberia, defense officials said yesterday.</p> <p>Two of three ships in a U.S. amphibious assault group left the waters off Liberia's shore during the weekend. The last one is expected to pull out midweek as the United Nations takes over the mission.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — American troops have started pulling out of the peacekeeping mission in Liberia (search), defense officials said Monday.</p> <p>Two of three ships in a U.S. amphibious assault group left waters off Liberia's shore during the weekend, and the last one is expected to pull out midweek as the United Nations (search) takes over the peacekeeping mission.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) -- American troops have started pulling out of the peacekeeping mission in Liberia, defense officials said Monday. Two of three ships in a U.S. amphibious assault group left waters off Liberia's shore during the weekend, and the last one is expected to pull out midweek as the United Nations takes over the peacekeeping mission. The U.S. departure will mark the end of deployment that the Bush administration ordered only hesitantly - and then limited in time and size - partly because the armed forces are stretched thin by the global war on terror and the campaign to topple...

<p>Ten more U.S. Marines and sailors who were in Liberia last month are being hospitalized with symptoms of malaria, bringing to 43 the number of suspected cases among those who participated in the mission, defense officials said Tuesday.</p> <p>The 43 represent nearly a third of the 150 who went ashore to assist West African peacekeepers. Doctors are investigating to find out why that rate is so high, said Air Force Capt. Sarah Kerwin, a spokeswoman for European Command.</p>

<p>A dozen Marines who participated in peacekeeping in Liberia last month have been diagnosed with malaria, while another 21 military personnel from their unit are exhibiting symptoms for the mosquito-borne disease, military officials said yesterday.</p> <p>Of the 33 &#8212; 32 Marines and a Navy hospital corpsman &#8212; two were sent to a military hospital in Germany and the other 31 flown to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. All are on antibiotics that kill the parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.</p>

MONROVIA, Liberia - A 150-strong Marine force withdrew to warships off the Liberian capital's coast on Sunday, ending significant U.S. military deployment on the ground after just 11 days and disappointing many Liberians. The Marines said American troops would be in better position on the warships to respond to any flare-ups in Liberia (news - web sites)'s week-old peace accord, meant to end 14 years of conflict that has claimed more than 150,000 lives. Liberians, watching U.S. military helicopters whir out of sight in the unannounced departure, spoke fearfully of being deserted. "They're forsaking us," said 22-year-old Emmanuel Slawon, watching...

<p>CRAWFORD, Texas &#8212; President Bush pledged yesterday that American forces would be out of Liberia by Oct. 1 as the Liberian government and rebels signed a peace accord to end a bloody three-year insurgency.</p> <p>"It's short-term," Mr. Bush told Armed Forces Network in an interview he gave Thursday but that was made public yesterday. "We have a special obligation in Liberia to help with humanitarian aid. And therefore we will."</p>

Filed at 5:13 p.m. ET CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- The 200 U.S. Marines sent as peacekeepers into war-ravaged Liberia have a limited mission and will be withdrawn by Oct. 1, President Bush said. The Marines landed last Thursday, charged with aiding an eventual 3,250-person West African peace force meant to end 14 years of near-constant strife in Liberia. ``Their job is to help secure an airport and a port so food can be off-loaded and the delivery process begun to help people in Monrovia,'' Bush said in an interview last week with Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in Miramar,...

When the first jets tore through the sky, the crowds ducked, then cheered. Thousands of Liberians had gathered as Nigerian peacekeepers were deployed in rebel-controlled Monrovia under the cover of American air power last week. And neither the armed soldiers nor the low-flying Cobra helicopters would drive them away.   US marines arrive in Liberia "Usually, when we fly attack helicopters, people move," said Staff Sgt Jacob Reiff, 28, a recent veteran of the Iraq conflict and one of the handful of American marines to join the Nigerians as they crossed the front line. "In Iraq, they understood it meant...

<p>MONROVIA, Liberia &#8212; Rebels lifted their siege of Liberia's capital yesterday, and 200 American troops landed to support a West African peace force, breaking off a 10-week campaign that routed the president, killed more than 1,000 civilians and left hundreds of thousands trapped and starving.</p>

US forces pour into Liberia with M16s and razor wire By Declan Walsh in Monrovia 15 August 2003 The siege is finally over. American marines landed dramatically in Monrovia yesterday, clearing the way for Nigerian peace-keepers to seize control of the battered city and end a mounting humanitarian crisis. Three days after the pariah President, Charles Taylor, fled into exile, US warplanes and helicopters screamed over Liberia's capital while Nigerian troops were pushing into rebel territory. A giant crowd of dancing and singing Liberians gave them a riotous welcome as they crossed frontline bridges, scenes of the most chaotic fighting...

Liberians hail US troops as rebels back away Agencies Thursday August 14, 2003 Residents of Liberia's besieged capital, Monrovia, poured onto the streets today, praising west African peacekeepers and a contingent of US marines as rebel forces backed away from the city. The US ambassador, John Blaney, and rebel leaders shook hands on the middle of a front-line bridge patrolled by Nigerian troops, marking the end of two months of siege. Rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) ceded control of Monrovia's port, a move that will allow food and drinking water to flow to starving civilians. Rebels...

<p>MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- U.S. military helicopters landed scores of American troops at Liberia's main airport Thursday, significantly bolstering American involvement in the warring country.</p> <p>Nine helicopters flying in formation settled on the tarmac, as two more hovered overhead.</p> <p>Scores of American troops jumped out wearing flak vests and helmets and armed with rifles.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Some 200 American troops could move ashore in Liberia if rebels fighting there abandon the country's port, the Pentagon said Wednesday.</p> <p>The U.S. forces would include elements to serve as liaison to African peacekeepers, Navy SEALS to make sure the waterway is secured and engineers to assess the port for delivery of humanitarian aid.</p>

<p>Taylor gives farewell address in Liberia MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — In a farewell address to his wartorn nation, President Charles Taylor declared Sunday he would "sacrifice my presidency' to stop bloodshed in Liberia, but added "God willing, I will be back."</p>

US Marines have helped rescue a seven-year-old girl from a rebel-held area of the war-torn Liberian capital Monrovia. Fighting had trapped American-born Shadya behind front lines with her mother in the US and her father's whereabouts unknown. But embassy staff in white flack-jackets, flanked by Marines, used a four-day lull in the fighting to cross the front line and rescue the girl. The rushed her back to the US embassy away from the rebel-held port area along with her 17-year-old sister. Liberian rebels are fighting to oust President Charles Taylor. Taylor, a former warlord blamed for 14 years of near-constant...

8/8/2003 - LUNGI, Sierra Leone (AFPN)  -- Far from the forests and castles of Germany, a handful of security forces airmen from the 52nd Security Forces Squadron at Spangdahlem Air Base are deployed to the palm trees and jungle canopy of Africa supporting operations in Liberia. The airmen deployed to Dakar, Senegal, on July 13 and set up the base for oncoming support. “We were the first cops in Dakar,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Reinecke, deployed security forces leader. “This is out of the ordinary for us, but it’s what we train for.” The Spangdahlem airmen left Dakar on July 31 to...

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - West African peacekeeping forces drove into Liberia's rebel-besieged, famished capital on Thursday to deafening cheers from the city's people. The triumphant arrival came as President Charles Taylor announced his successor - a step toward his much-anticipated resignation and toward ending two months of bloody warfare in Monrovia that has killed at least 1,000 people. In a letter to Congress, Taylor said he would hand power to his vice president, Moses Blah. Lawmakers approved the decision, paving the way for Taylor's stepping down Monday, as promised. Blah said Taylor called him Thursday morning to tell him the...