The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), an anti-Taylor rebel group backed by the government of Guinea, invaded northern Liberia in mid-2000, seizing the city of Voinjama.

The Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed by the warring parties a week later, marking the political end of the conflict and beginning Liberia's transition to democracy.

Taylor had initiated the war when he and his militia, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), invaded the country from the Ivory Coast to overthrow President Samuel Doe in December 1989.

The INPFL captured and executed Doe in September 1990 and resisted attempts by the NPFL to take Monrovia, denying Taylor an outright victory and prolonging the war for years.

Taylor's ambition of establishing Liberia as a regional power led to him supporting rebel groups such as the Rally of Democratic Forces of Guinea in the RFDG Insurgency and the Revolutionary United Front in the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Simultaneous September 2000 counter-attacks on Guinea from Liberia and Sierra Leone by RUF – still loyal to Taylor and Guinean dissidents – achieved initial success.

[9] The February 2002 ICG report says that this attack was made by pursuing ‘a strategy of infiltration of south-western Liberia through the thick bush of Southern Lofa, looping around government strongholds and disrupting supply lines... while LURD claims between 300 and 500 men were assigned to that mission, ... the number that actually attacked was likely closer to twenty.’ Any image of a large force gradually pushing toward Monrovia is mistaken; ‘hit and run’ raids, rather than a continuous advance, seem to have been the pattern.

[10] Through the first half of 2002 LURD mounted raids in Bomi, Bong, and Montserrado counties, hitting, in addition to Klay Junction, Gbarnga and Tubmanburg, each time temporarily seizing control from government fighters.

[11] In early 2003, a second rebel group, the Ivoirian-backed Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), emerged in the south, and by the summer of 2003, Taylor's government controlled only a third of the country.

A new bout of fighting began in March 2003 after a relative lull and by early May, LURD and MODEL had gained control of nearly two-thirds of the country, and were threatening Monrovia.

Regional and wider pressure led to the convening of a conference in Accra by the then Chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), President John Kufuor of Ghana, on 4 June 2003.

[12] The U.S. established Joint Task Force Liberia, built around a U.S. navy amphibious group with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard, positioned off the West African coast.

[14] President Taylor resigned on 11 August 2003, ahead of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which formed the negotiated end to the war, and was flown into exile in Nigeria.

An arrest warrant for Taylor for war crimes committed by his RUF rebel allies in Sierra Leone was later issued by Interpol but Nigeria refused to deport him for a time unless they receive a specific request from Liberia.

Thousands of people danced and sang as American troops and ECOMIL, the Nigerian-led West African forces, took over the port and bridges which had split the capital into government and rebel-held zones.

That first United Nations post-conflict peace-building support office was tasked primarily with assisting the government in consolidating peace following the July 1997 multiparty elections.

[19] Their creative non-violent protest allowed them to use the power within women and mothers of Liberia; tactics included a sex strike until their men chose to set aside weapons, and threatening to undress during a sit in outside the peace talks in Ghana.