West African leaders tonight pledged to have the first peace troops in warring Liberia by Monday and said indicted war-crimes suspect President Charles Taylor would go into exile within days.
The commitment came at a summit of West African heads of state in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, as pressure grew on regional leaders to speed up a peace force promised almost since rebels opened two months of bloody siege on Liberia's capital in early June.
A vanguard force, expected to be two Nigerian battalions with about 1,500 men total, would deploy by Monday, said Mr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the West African leaders' bloc.
"The heads of states and government decided that the first task of the vanguard force should be to provide the appropriate conditions for the handover of power, and departure from Liberia of President Taylor," Mr Chambas said.
Mr Chambas called for an immediate ceasefire by both sides in Liberia, where rebels are pressing home a three-year-old campaign to take the capital and drive out Taylor, a former warlord blamed in 14 years of near constant conflict in the once-prosperous West African nation.
Ghana's foreign minister, Mr Nana Akuffo Ado, said troops would go in regardless of whether a ceasefire was holding.
Rebels and government alike in Liberia have broken repeated truce pledges since fighting started.
Three US warships, headed by the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima with almost 2,000 marines on board, are believed to be now cruising off Liberia's Atlantic coast.
President George Bush has said US troops will not go ashore until a ceasefire is enforced.
The West African leaders statement said "it was agreed" that Taylor would hand over power to his successor, and accept an offer of exile in Nigeria, within three days of the troops' arrival.
Taylor, a wanted UN war-crimes suspect for his backing of rebels in the neighbouring nation of Sierra Leone, has said in recent weeks that he would yield power as soon as the peace troops arrive.
It was not clear whether West African leaders had specifically won his agreement.
Fighting there since early June has killed off more than 1,000 civilians in the capital Monrovia, and virtually cut off food and clean water to the city of more than 1.3 million.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had urged West African leaders to commit to a date for the peace force.
In Monrovia today, trapped residents emerged from hiding places by the tens of thousands today to welcoming what they hoped was the advance guard of an Afro American peace force.