A West Africa peace keeping solder, hold's his AK 47 at the ready, at a checkpoint, close to the Po river in rebel territory, near Monrovia

MONROVIA, August 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Despite a peace deal being reached one week ago to end 14 years of war in Liberia, people here had little to cheer about amid reports of fresh fighting and a massacre in the countryside in which up to 1,000 died.

Negotiators from Liberia's caretaker government, led by President Moses Blah, and the country's two main rebel groups signed a peace pact on Monday, August 18, a week after disgraced warlord turned president Charles Taylor stood down and went into exile.

Two days later, the two sides named a "neutralist" candidate, businessman Gyude Bryant, as the new interim leader of Liberia, who will take over from Blah in October at the head of a peacetime government, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

But the prospect of lasting peace was marred Monday, August 25, by reports of fresh fighting in the countryside and a massacre in the northeast.

A senior Liberian military official told AFP late Sunday, August 24, that many civilians had been killed and villages torched in a massacre in the town of Bahn, in Nimba county, about 250 kilometres (150 miles) northeast of the capital, but the information could not be independently verified.

"I have received a report from our security officers that many villages there had burned down and that there have been lots of massacres," said General Benjamin Yeaten, deputy head of the government army.

"My understanding is that there was a massacre but we are not exactly sure how many people have been killed. It could be a hundred, it could be a thousand," he added, without saying who the perpetrators were.

He did say that the two main rebel groups in the country, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), had carried out attacks in Nimba in recent days.

Citing a witness who had fled the assault at Bahn, local public radio reported that MODEL rebels had stormed the town, opening fire on the local population before disappearing back into the forest.

The attack left a thousand people dead, the witness said.

Reports had also been received of clashes between government and MODEL forces on the highway between Monrovia and Buchanan, the country's second port city which has been under control of MODEL since the end of July.

Between 8,000 to 10,000 people fled their homes in that area over the weekend, but U.N. officials believed that many people were fleeing because of harassment by government militias, who fire into the air and then steal people's possessions when they run away.

Jordi Reich, deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Liberia, said although reports were sketchy, skirmishes were continuing outside the capital.

"Outside Monrovia there has never really been peace. The frontline areas are still very tricky," he said.

‘Back To Ship’

Meanwhile, a U.S. rapid reaction force of 150 Marines deployed to help keep the peace in war-torn Liberia has returned to warships anchored off the west African country's coast, the U.S. embassy said Monday.

But an official said the redeployment of the forces did not change U.S. involvement in Liberia, struggling to establish peace after years of war.

"We still have the same numbers of Marines in Liberia, they were removed from the airport and went back to the ship... because they felt they could serve better as a rapid reaction force from there (the ship)," Sarah Morrison, a spokeswoman for the embassy, said.

"We don't want Liberia to feel that anybody has abandoned them."

The Marines, who had been stationed at Monrovia airport outside the capital, arrived in the country on August 14 to help a west African peacekeeping force known as ECOMIL.

On Sunday, Liberia celebrated National Flag Day, a public holiday commemorating the first hoisting of the Liberian flag by the founders of Africa's oldest independent country on August 24, 1847.

But unlike the years before the war reached the capital, few Monrovians hung out their flags -- very similar to the United States' but with a single star and 11 stripes -- and there were no street parades in the starving city, which had been besieged by rebels from earlier this year until Taylor quit.

"People don't like to celebrate something when they are traumatized by war," said Francis Glago, 26, a former accountant who now makes a living as a taxi driver.