UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the United States on Monday to deploy troops in turbulent Liberia "before it is too late" and warned rebel groups that any seizure of power would not be recognized by the international community.

President Bush said the United States was working with regional nations, the Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS, to determine when peacekeeping troops will be able to move into Liberia, but he gave no numbers or date. Bush also pledged to work with the United Nations to support a cease-fire, an indication that the White House was waiting until fighting subsided.

"I think we can really salvage the situation if troops were to be deployed urgently and promptly," Annan told reporters.

He renewed his call to ECOWAS to send in peacekeepers without delay and urged the United States "to spare no effort to support this deployment and to announce its own decision on the deployment of US troops before it is too late."

"I believe that we need to pay urgent attention to the situation in Liberia, because Liberia today is poised between hope and disaster," Annan said.

At least 20 mortar bombs smashed into the diplomatic quarter close to the US embassy compound, killing at least three people, as fighting raged in Liberia's capital Monrovia.

Some 10,000 people are crammed into the US embassy compound and about 70-100 US Marines have been sent to Monrovia to guard the embassy.

One bomb hit in the embassy compound itself as rebel troops of the Liberian United For Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, pounded Monrovia. The rebels are fighting to overthrow the President Charles Taylor.

Annan said all parties, particularly the rebels, should observe a cease-fire and warned "that any attempt to seize power by force would be unacceptable to the international community."

Meanwhile, the United Nations withdrew its last seven international relief workers from Monrovia, although they returned to the country only two weeks ago during a lull in the fighting, a UN official said.

They had been trying to help some 200,000 uprooted people who fled to Monrovia to escape the fighting in rural areas.

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