The rebels lifted 10 weeks of attacks on the capital Thursday, allowing food and aid to trickle in after fighting that killed hundreds and left hundreds of thousands starving.

Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, the leading rebel movement, on Sunday dropped a demand it be given one of the highest posts in an interim power-sharing government that will lead Liberia for two years.

West African mediators had threatened to suspend the talks for a month unless rebels gave way on that point. Liberia's post-Taylor government, led by former vice president Moses Blah, and the country's second rebel group already have agreed not to seek a top role in the interim government.

"We want to prove to the entire world that this whole thing is not about LURD wanting power," said George Dweh, a leader of the rebel delegation.

All sides also signed a pledge Sunday to let aid workers deploy freely throughout the hungry and war-ruined nation, starting Tuesday.

"I was not disappointed," Blah, who returned from talks late Saturday without a hoped-for peace deal, told The Associated Press. "The process is on."

Taylor, a Libyan-trained guerrilla fighter blamed in 14 years of conflict in Liberia, yielded the presidency to Blah, his vice president. West African leaders say Blah himself will hand over power in October to the power-sharing government, meant to see Liberia through elections.

About 1,000 members of a planned 3,250-strong West African peacekeeping force have been deployed to Liberia. About 200 U.S. Marines are billeted at the airport to back up the force if necessary.

Jacques Klein, the U.N. special representative for Liberia, said the United Nations was giving $50 million to help pay for demobilizing fighters, replacing corrupt security forces and repairing Liberia's water and electrical systems.

Klein also rejected suggestions that Liberia, once sub-Saharan Africa's richest nation, be placed under some kind of U.N. stewardship.

"The people of Liberia have the talent and ability to reconstruct their country," Klein said.

Sunday was the first day of calm for worship in deeply religious Liberia, after weeks when congregations sang hymns against the backdrop of AK-47 and mortar fire, or lay on the floor of churches to escape bullets.

Jubilant survivors danced in the pews and aisles of Monrovia's Sacred Heart Cathedral as a swaying chorus sang to the beat of tam-tam drums and calabash-gourd rattles.

Choir boys snapped their fingers and sang a hymn that had been repeated often during the siege: "I will dance, I will dance to praise the Lord."

"How many friends have died?" the capital's outspoken Roman Catholic archbishop, Michael Francis, told the congregation. "We pray that our country, so beautiful in the past, will come back, better."

In the city outside, families living in the abandoned Ministry of Foreign Affairs building hauled home some of the 70 tons of corn meal distributed Sunday by the World Food Program.

For Kafa Teah, a 39-year-old father of eight, it was the first food aid since early June. The family, driven from its home by fighting, sold all it had carried for food, then lived off leaves and other foraged food.

"We need not only food, but total peace. They need to stop fighting so we can get back on our feet and work for ourselves - rather than being spoon-fed by others," said Teah, a Baptist preacher.

West African peacekeepers planned Sunday to take up posts northwest of Monrovia, easing rebels back to a line at the Po River, 10 miles outside the city, agreed upon earlier.

"It is time to put down your guns and tell your men to go back," Nigerian Col. Mark Nyoyoko told the rebel fighters, still toting AK-47s and rocket launchers within the city.

But rebel fighter Tamba Saysay argued, "If we leave, government militias will harass our people."

The Nigerian colonel replied, "You'll be quite safe. They will have to fire at us."

"Thank you," another rebel fighter said, hugging him.

Rebels and fleeing refugees accused government fighters of advancing from Artington, 15 miles to the northwest.

Government fighters attacked rebels Sunday morning after raiding nearby communities Wednesday and Friday, looting homes and raping women and children, the rebels and residents said.

"We're suffering, and we want to go home," said one refugee, J. Ebenezer Richardson, living off what he could find in the forests.

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