In continuation of their intensified crackdown on crime in Monrovia and its environs, police have raided the infamous "Trench Town" Community, a haven for many notorious drug dealers and drug users on Center Street, burnt eight ghettoes and arrested several suspects.

But the police expressed surprise that hours following the burning of the ghettoes on Saturday, the criminals regrouped and began hurriedly rebuilding their shacks as they hollered insults at the law enforcement officers.

Credible police sources told this paper that due to the notoriety of Trench Town, situated at South Beach Coconut Plantation, no less than five police easily can venture into the community without jeopardizing their safety.

"This is why it took 16 aggressive and trained police officers to enter the place strange to them and begin burning their ghettoes. But it was not an easy mission. We need armed policemen next time we come here," one member of the police squad that participated in the raid suggested. The Saturday morning dragnet collected Lincoln Kofa, 28, an ex-militia of former President Charles Taylor presently on trial in The Hague, admitted he used and sold drugs in Trench Town.

Also arrested was Henry Kamara, 28, who confessed to selling drugs for Nathaniel Bell, a notorious drug dealer on Center Street whom police arrested last week but later surfaced in his ghetto after he had been arraigned at the West Point Magisterial Court for instructing drug users to attack the police. Police said when Kamara was arrested and Nathaniel Bell (notoriously known as Natu) visited the police station to negotiate his release boasting, "I have friends among the police". Theophilus Neor and Nicolas Puchuboy both in their late 20s were arrested red-handed with dangerous drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, Dugee, and Italian White, police said.