NEWS
August 7, 1990 | MICHAEL A. HILTZIK, TIMES STAFF WRITER
A Liberian rebel leader seized 14 or 15 foreign hostages Monday, including an American, making good on his threat to use foreign nationals as bait to provoke international intervention in Liberia's seven-month civil war. Prince Johnson, who commands troops that split off in February from a larger rebel force commanded by former government minister Charles Taylor, had threatened Saturday to begin seizing Americans, Britons, Lebanese and Indians. He pledged not to harm them.