MONROVIA, July 20: Mortar and gunfire rocked the war-battered Liberian capital Monrovia early on Sunday after a night of fighting as the US urged advancing rebels to hold their fire and return to peace talks.

A fragile month-old ceasefire in a ruinous four-year rebel war lay in tatters as steady shelling and gunfire punctuated the night in the seaside capital, but the intensity decreased after dawn in the Mamba Point district where several embassies and humanitarian organisations are based.

The capital was on tenterhooks amid mounting tension. Militias and troops loyal to President Charles Taylor were scattered across the city, jumpy and armed to the teeth. Rebels from the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy group pushed over a key bridge on the outskirts of the capital on Saturday, fuelling further panic in the devastated city.—AFP