Twelve US Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit who were in Liberia last month in support of a West African peacekeeping mission have contracted malaria and 21 others have symptoms of the disease. Two Marines were flown from the USS Iwo Jima (off the coast of Liberia) to a US medical facility in Germany on September 7 and 31 others were flown from the ship the next day to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. There are about 136 US troops ashore in Liberia, mostly Marines providing security at the US Embassy in Monrovia. The Iwo Jima task force off the coast has about 2,200 Marines and about 2,500 sailors aboard. 

Meanwhile, fighting in central Liberia has delayed ECOMIL plans to deploy about 600 Guinea-Bissau troops to the region north of the capital Monrovia. The Guinea-Bissau battalion was scheduled to move on the 7th, but government needed to remove army check points from the highway leading to northern Liberia before the peacekeepers could proceed. - Adam Geibel