East Timor's military and international forces have launched an operation against rebels hiding in hills near the capital following an assassination attempt on the country's president, the military chief said today.
Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta (58), is recovering in hospital in Australia after being shot and critically wounded at his home in Dili on Monday in an attack by rebel soldiers.
Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped injury in another shooting, also believed to have been carried out by followers of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado who was killed during the attack on Mr Ramos-Horta.
East Timor's military chief, Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak, told a news conference security forces were questioning more than 30 people in relation to the attacks and would start going to people's houses to look for the rebels.
Dili was calm today. A state of emergency is in place until February 23rd.
Reinado deserted the army in May 2006 to join about 600 former soldiers who had been sacked earlier that year. The soldiers complained that they had been discriminated against because they were from the western part of East Timor.
The soldiers' dismissal sparked protests that degenerated into a wave of violence, in which 37 people died and about 150,000 people fled from their homes.
International security forces were sent to the resource-rich but still-impoverished country to halt the ethnic fighting and clashes between rival police and the military.
East Timor gained full independence from Indonesia in 2002 after a UN-sponsored vote in 1999 that was marred by violence. Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975. Many thousands of East Timorese died during the occupation.