MONROVIA: Rebels firing rockets and mortars fought their way to the strategic port area of Liberia's capital Monrovia yesterday, as terrified civilians raced to the city centre and the thud of shells echoed from the suburbs.

The port is just 4 kilometres from the city centre, where thousands of terrified civilians are trapped between the battle and the Atlantic Ocean. One resident said he had seen 10 dead bodies in the port area when he fled.

"Shooting is going on around Freeport now...the shooting is very serious," said a woman who gave her name as Doris and who had come from the port area.

The new rebel offensive has shattered hopes of a peaceful end to West Africa's bloodiest war and raised the spectre of a brutal last-ditch battle on the streets of the coastal capital.

President Charles Taylor vowed to fight for his survival - defiant words from a former warlord under attack in his seat of power for the second time in three weeks, and under international condemnation as an indicted war criminal.

"I am right here with the men and women-in-arms, encouraging them to continue to fight, to fight on," he told local radio yesterday. "Your survival is my survival, my survival is your survival."

In the city centre, people sought refuge in their homes, too frightened to venture out. When rebels pushed into the city earlier this month, more than 300 people were killed and thousands of people are still crammed into makeshift camps in the city.

"We will fight them until a neutral force can come here...This land is ours and we cannot sit down and allow these people to come and overrun us," said one military official, who declined to be named. "We have no place to go."

Military officials said the rebels were trying to launch long-range missiles into the city. Taylor said rebels fired mortar shells into civilian centres, killing women and children.

The fighting has all but sunk a ceasefire agreed a week ago, and cast a long shadow on talks in Ghana that were supposed to lead quickly to a comprehensive peace agreement.

The main rebel faction, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), said on Tuesday it had begun moving to retake positions held before the truce.

Liberians had hoped last week's deal would pave the way for an end to a war that has devastated their country and generated an army of ruthless fighters spreading chaos across the region.

Agencies via Xinhua

(China Daily 06/26/2003 page1)