Australia urges East Timor rebels to surrender

CANBERRA-Australia's top military commander on Wednesday urged rebel East Timorese soldiers to surrender as Australian commandos continue hunting them following an attack last week on the country's leadership.Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said elite Australian special forces soldiers hoped to arrest followers of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, killed during a pre-dawn gunbattle in which President Jose Ramos-Horta was seriously wounded."We would like to bring these people to justice peacefully without confrontation, and I encourage any of Reinado's former followers to surrender to the authorities in East Timor," Houston told a hearing before Australia's upper house Senate.But under rules of combat covering the near-1,000 Australian soldiers helping East Timorese police and soldiers, Houston said Australian-led international forces would shoot back if "any individuals choose confrontation".East Timor's police and military have been merged following the attack on Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to better coordinate the hunt for rebels.Nobel laureate Ramos-Horta, 58, is recovering in hospital in Australia after being shot twice in the back and chest, undergoing more surgery at the weekend. Gusmao escaped injury.Reinado deserted the army in May 2006 to join about 600 former soldiers sacked earlier that year amid claims they were discriminated against because they were from the western part of East Timor.International peacekeeping forces were sent to the resource-rich but largely impoverished country to halt ethnic fighting and clashes between rival police and the military which broke out following the rebellion.
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As in the days of Noah....