Libetia's boy soldiers leave a trail of ruin: Some of the fiercest fighters in the civil war are children, hardly higher than an AK-47

SWINGING a 30-calibre machine-gun to and fro, a young soldier, with a belt of bullets strapped across his chest, strode up the road as his comrades crept slowly alongside through dense forest.

Suddenly, enemy fighters crouching behind steel oil drums 100 yards away, outraged by the show of bravado, fired automatic weapons into the air. But the young man, a soldier of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), which is led by Charles Taylor and is the main faction in the West African nation's civil war, continued to advance, walking upright. He was smiling.

Major-General Samuel Varney, Mr Taylor's military adviser, who was commanding the unit, started screaming for his aides to order the soldier to withdraw.

'I don't want any heroes. You don't know the enemy's strategy,' he barked. 'It's my strategy: fake, circle around and come up your arse.'

Several minutes and more bursts of gunfire later, the young soldier was finally cajoled into abandoning his antics. The column of NPFL fighters agreed to pull back after Gen Varney overruled General 'Exactly the Point', so named because when he agrees with Mr Taylor in meetings, his pet riposte is 'exactly the point'.

The incident took place on the edge of the town of Kakata, 42 miles from the capital, Monrovia. It is a major front in the war between the NPFL and the West African intervention force, known as Ecomog, and its allied factions, the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy, the armed forces of Liberia and the Black Berets.

The Nigerian-led 15,000-strong Ecomog force, whose jet bombers, tanks and Swedish-made Bofors 155mm artillery pieces provide superior firepower, have in recent weeks pushed back the NPFL, such as at Kakata, which Mr Taylor's forces fully controlled until 21 February. But, despite boasts by the Nigerian general Adetunji Olurin that he has Mr Taylor on the run, prospects for an outright military victory appear bleak.

Victories by Ecomog in the Liberian conflict are usually hollow, with advancing troops quickly surrounded and harassed by Mr Taylor's effective but highly irregular forces.

The uniform of an average NPFL fighter is a pair of shorts or shredded trousers, tennis shoes or none at all, and a soiled T-shirt. The troops are not paid and mainly live off the land. All they need to continue the war is a constant supply of bullets and morale, neither which they seem to lack.

Some soldiers, members of the Small Boy Unit, are as young as nine years old, their automatic rifles nearly as tall as they are. 'They can be the best fighters, because they have no fear,' said a Liberian businessman. 'They have nothing to lose; they have never slept with women and usually they are orphans. Their loyalty to Taylor is total.'

One barefoot trooper near Kakata was in shorts, wore a winter hat pulled tightly over his ears and held an AK-47 in one hand. In the other he cradled an American football, like a schoolboy.

The Jungle Warriors are the most unique of the irregular forces. They believe they can disappear, and their commander, Paul Koto, said he had discovered bees which he can dispatch to kill the enemy.

'The only problem is that they kill every other living thing too,' he said.

Mr Koto said that he can fire an AK-47 directly into the palm of his hand and catch the bullet without injury. But there is a snag: he has not worked out how to prevent powder burns.

(Photograph omitted)