WASHINGTON Bush orders troops to Liberian coast

The death toll continues to rise from a shelling attack near the U.S. Embassy today.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush ordered an unspecified number of U.S. troops to be positioned off the coast of war-torn Liberia to assist West African peacekeeping forces.
The U.S. role will be limited, the White House said in a statement today.
"The president has directed the secretary of defense to position appropriate military capabilities off the coast of Liberia" to help support the peacekeeping force, it said.
The statement did not say how many U.S. troops or ships would be involved.
"The immediate task of the [West African peacekeeping] force is to reinforce a cease fire and begin to create conditions where humanitarian assistance can be provided to the Liberian people," it said.
The statement reiterated Bush's insistence that Liberian President Charles Taylor "must leave."
Long-awaited decision
International relief workers have been pressing the White House for a decision, saying that a delay in sending in peacekeepers made it impossible to help the victims of the fighting.
Bush has been mulling the decision since June, when U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and others began pleading with the United States to provide military assistance after the announcement of a new cease fire accord.
The question dogged Bush as he traveled through sub-Saharan Africa at the beginning of July.
Throughout, Bush and senior aides said the United States likely would get involved because of the West African country's historical role as perhaps America's most dependable Cold War ally in Africa and its unique ties to the United States as a country founded by former slaves.
Shelling attack
Mortar rounds thudded into the U.S. Embassy compound, homes and a school crowded with refugees today in the bloodiest attack on Liberia's besieged capital in days, killing at least 12 Liberian men, women and children.
The onslaught, which wounded more than 100 others, brought despairing new pleas from Monrovia's trapped people .
Government forces and rebels blamed each other for the bombardment, which sent 15 to 20 shells crashing into the densely populated neighborhood around the embassy within 10 minutes.
Refugees have packed into the neighborhood by the thousands, hoping for some safety through proximity to the heavily guarded embassy as rebels press home their three-year war to oust Taylor.
Taylor, blamed for 14 years of near perpetual conflict in Liberia, has retreated to downtown, his forces battling to block insurgents from crossing bridges into the district.
Targeting citizens
Mortar barrages, during two months of rebel attacks on the city, have killed hundreds of refugees. Largely, shells have pounded densely populated neighborhoods rather than strategic targets such as Taylor's mansion or troop concentrations.
One shell today struck inside the high-walled U.S. Embassy compound, exploding harmlessly on rocky ground, a U.S. official inside said.
Other rounds brought carnage. One shell at the beginning of the attack slammed into a yard where two boys stood brushing their teeth, killing both.
Blocks away, another shell crashed into the yard of a school where hundreds of people have taken refuge.
The round killed seven refugees outright; an eighth was later reported dead at an international aid group's tent clinic.
At the school, wailing crowds surrounded the dead. Victims' flip-flops lay discarded, soaking in pools of blood. One body, that of a boy in his early teens, lay curled in a corner.
"What do they want to achieve?" Peter Garwah, 27, cried out, before a new mortar round sent terrified survivors scrambling for cover under schoolhouse tables or pressing, screaming, against classroom walls. "Innocent people are dying, not soldiers."
Rising casualty toll
The casualty toll, reported by aid clinics and Monrovia's overwhelmed main hospital, was likely to climb far higher.
An ambulance brought gravely wounded people to the open-air tent hospital run by Medicins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders.
Workers ferried in the wounded -- a man with a mangled leg, a woman with her intestines spilling out.
In Accra, Ghana, site of off-and-on peace talks and broken cease-fire pledges, rebel envoys accused Taylor's forces of opening the latest fighting -- but called on all sides to stop it.
However, rebel envoys of the main Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy movement quarreled publicly before reporters over leadership of their group -- heightening doubts about whether the fraction-plagued organization could make any cease-fire order stick.
Today, a woman wrapped in white stood before the U.S. Embassy after the worst of the barrage, raising her arms beseechingly in the air.
"We're tired! We're tired!" she cried, swaying.
A Marine peered at her through binoculars from the embassy, which has remained staffed throughout the fighting.
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