East Timor launches operation against rebels

DILI (Reuters) - East Timor's military and internationalforces have launched an operation against rebels hiding inhills near the capital following an assassination attempt onthe country's president, the military chief said on Saturday.

Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, 58, is recovering inhospital in Australia after being shot and critically woundedat his home in Dili on Monday in an attack by rebel soldiers.

Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped injury in anothershooting, also believed to have been carried out by followersof rebel leader Alfredo Reinado who was killed during theattack on Ramos-Horta.

"We know that residents are hiding them (rebels). We callon the people to stop protecting them because by doing so theyput their lives at risk," East Timor's military chief,Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak, told a news conference.

"We call on the people to contribute to a peaceful solutionto the problem. For two years they supported Alfredo, but whathave they got?"

Ruak said security forces were questioning more than 30people in relation to the attacks and would start going topeople's houses to look for the rebels.

Dili was calm on Saturday. "I want to spend the weekendrelaxing because it has been a bad time for us this past week,"said Dili resident, Ernesto Pereira, on the beachfront.

"The emergency status means I have to go home before duskso we should enjoy ourselves while we can."

A state of emergency is in place until February 23.

Ruak urged soldiers who were sacked in 2006 to join otherswho have agreed to talks with the government to address theirgrievances.

Reinado deserted the army in May 2006 to join about 600former soldiers who had been sacked earlier that year. Thesoldiers complained that they had been discriminated againstbecause they were from the western part of East Timor.

The soldiers' dismissal sparked protests that degeneratedinto a wave of violence, in which 37 people died and about150,000 people fled from their homes.

International security forces were sent to theresource-rich but still-impoverished country to halt the ethnicfighting and clashes between rival police and the military.

East Timor gained full independence from Indonesia in 2002after a U.N.-sponsored vote in 1999 that was marred byviolence. Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in1975. Many thousands of East Timorese died during the brutaloccupation.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)