LIBERIA: Nobody expected the lull to last long, and it didn't. On Thursday, Monrovia's rebels silenced their guns as an advance team of Nigerian peacekeepers toured the city. Yesterday morning, they made up for lost time. Tackling tribal rivalries is crucial if any peace plan is to succeed, writes Declan Walsh in Liberia
Shells slammed into West Point, a waterside slum of ramshackle houses, narrow alleyways and thousands of huddling civilians. The slaughter claimed nine lives, four of them children. Afterwards, the bodies were piled on the dirty ground outside.
Politics and philosophy have little place in the vicious battle for this besieged city. Whether they are shelling civilians or raking gunfire into crowded residential areas, Liberia's rebels seem to care little for furthering any deeply-held convictions, much less for currying international favour.
Earlier in the week, a rebel spokesman boasted his forces could have taken Monrovia if it were not for international "whining" about civilian casualties.
One burning motivation drives them: the desire to topple President Charles Taylor, himself a onetime warlord, from power. The rebel noose is tightening.
The embattled president controls only about one quarter of the country, and his options appear increasingly limited. The international community is hoping to speed his departure.
Over 1,500 Nigerian-led peacekeepers are mustering and due to start deploying on Monday. And another 2,000 US troops are steaming towards Liberia. They are due to arrive tomorrow for a "support mission".
But the rebel drive is not just about toppling Mr Taylor from power. A complex web of factors, rooted in tribal animosities and regional power politics, lies behind their twin offensives.
And if the USled mission is to succeed, it will have to disentangle this Gordian knot - tied in bloodshed, history and money- if peace is to be restored to Liberia.
Mr Taylor's predicament is the price of his own misdeeds. Since coming to power in 1997 he has spread instability throughout the region, supporting rebellions in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. Today those West African enemies are hitting back with a vengeance.
Guinea is the principal sponsor of the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, estimated to number between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters. The LURD chairman, Mr Sekou Dammate Conneh, openly operates from the Guinean capital, Conakry.
His fighters have rear bases in Guinea's southern forests. Diplomats say that arms and military advice flow freely across the border.
There are other ties also. According to a western diplomat, Mr Conneh's wife Ayesha, also acts as a spiritual advisor to Guinea's ailing president, Mr Lansana Conté.
To the east, the president of Cote d'Ivoire, Mr Laurent Gbagbo has thrown his weight behind a second, smaller rebellion, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). His motivation is to avenge support Mr Taylor lent to rebels that attempted to topple his government last year, and now control half the country.
But with the spotlight firmly on Mr Taylor and his embattled entourage, a critical dimension of the fighting has been overshadowed.
Tribal rivalries and power lust have motivated much of the Liberia's violence over the past 14 blood-soaked years. The roots of the conflict stretch back to the 1820s, when the first freed US slaves landed under the palm trees of this Atlantic shoreline.
For the following 150 years, the Americo-Liberians dominated Liberia with an iron fist at the expense of the indigenous African majority. Native Africans were, excluded from political power, denied citizenship, and in some instances, even taken into slavery themselves.
That dominance was shattered with a 1980 coup, led by an indigenous army sergeant, Sgt Samuel Doe, who appointed himself president. However, his rule was brutal, crude and marked by favouritism towards his own Krahn tribesmen.
That tribal element sparked Mr Taylor's rebellion in 1989, and practically every uprising since then.
The LURD were initially spearheaded by an alliance of Mandingo and Krahn fighters. The Mandingo are descended from immigrant Muslim traders; the Krahn are an older tribe from the southeast.
Earlier this year the alliance was shattered when the Krahn leaders broke away to form MODEL. Former president Doe's brother, Mr Chayee Doe, was among the principal defectors.
The question of Mandingo identity is critical. Most Liberians would resent a LURD military victory, because the Mandingo are still regarded as outsiders.
Some refer to them disparagingly as "pseudo-citizens".
The MODEL forces are perceived to be better disciplined and armed. But analysts say that neither group would make beneficial rulers.
In a report published last April, analysts from the International Crisis Group said: "In its current form, the LURD is ruthless and interested only in grabbing power. It should not be permitted to secure a military victory." The US and Nigeria say that President Taylor's departure is the first step to peace. That may be so. But they will also know that carefully managing and appeasing Liberia's myriad tribal rivalries is crucial to any peace plan succeeding.