Peacekeeping troops land in Liberia

Nigerian soldiers in green camouflage and flak vests leapt out of the first UN helicopter as it settled onto the tarmac at Liberia's main airport, outside the country's besieged capital.

Machine guns at the ready, they crouched, taking up defensive positions on the landing strip.

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"We know everyone is expecting us, and we hope to live up to their expectations," said Col. Theophilus Tawiah of Ghana, the freshly assembled force's chief of staff.

In Monrovia, residents near the city's embattled port heard cheers and watched flares go up over the war-ruined city - rebels, celebrating arrival of the West African troops.

Authorities said a total of 192 men and 33,000 pounds of equipment would deploy Monday. The men are the first wave of a promised 3,250-strong West African deployment, to be followed within months by a UN peacekeeping force.

Two of three US warships full of Marines arrived off the country's Atlantic Ocean coast, waiting to support the peacekeepers. It was unclear whether the US Marines will ever go ashore.

Allan Doss, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's representative in Sierra Leone, saw off the first troops from neighboring Sierra Leone earlier Monday.

"I wish you God speed and well in this historic mission to Liberia," Doss said. "The people of Liberia have suffered a lot, for too long. They need your help."

In all, 675 Nigerian soldiers and 18 of their officers assembled on the airfield to take part in the first deployment.

West African leaders have promised the force to quell fighting in Liberia, where two months of rebel sieges on the capital have killed more than 1,000 civilians outright and all but cut off the refugee-crowded city of more than 1.3 million from food and water.

The Nigerians, the first arrivals, are leaving a UN mission in Sierra Leone, where large-scale military intervention by Britain, neighboring Guinea and the United Nations helped end a vicious 10-year civil war.

Gen. Daniel Opande, commander of the UN force in Sierra Leone, spoke of "the very difficult task to try to bring Liberia back to normalcy."

"We shall follow what you have to do, and I am sure you will succeed," Opande said, drawing three cheers from the men.

Soon after the first two helicopters took off, troops loaded the first equipment - rumbling an armored personnel carrier up to another aircraft.

Separate flights also were planned at another Sierra Leone airfield for equipment.

On Sunday, the leader of the peacekeeping force for Liberia sought to temper high expectations among the country's suffering people, saying the first troops would only secure the airport on the capital's outskirts.