By Ahmad Pathoni
DILI (Reuters) - East Timor's prosecutor-general said onWednesday he would issue arrest warrants for 18 people believedto be involved in assassination attempts on the Southeast Asiannation's president and prime minister.
President Jose Ramos-Horta was critically wounded bygunfire from rebel soldiers early on Monday, while PrimeMinister Xanana Gusmao escaped unhurt in a separate attack onhis motorcade.
"We're coming today to a conclusion to issue the warrants,"Prosecutor-General Longinhos Monteiro told reporters in Dili.
Asked how strong the evidence was, he said: "99 percent,"but added "I do not want to mention the names of those involvedat this stage."
Australian troops continued to arrive in Dili on Wednesdayto reinforce international peacekeepers and the 1,600-strongUnited Nations police detachment, who are enforcing a state ofemergency declared in the wake of Monday's attacks.
The streets in Dili remained calm, although local peoplesaid the atmosphere remained tense.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament inCanberra that the situation in Dili was stable but tense.
Nobel laureate Ramos-Horta was airlifted to Darwin on lifesupport for emergency medical treatment on Monday for triplegunshot wounds. Surgeons carried out a further operation onWednesday but he remained seriously ill, a senior doctor said.
"The president underwent surgery this morning and we arevery pleased with his progress, although he remains in aserious but stable condition," Len Notaras, general manager ofRoyal Darwin Hospital, told Reuters.
Ramos-Horta has already had surgery to reconstruct hisright lung, although Notaras refused to say what operation wascarried out on Wednesday ahead of an afternoon press briefingby the Nobel Peace Prize winner's family.
The president is expected to stay in a medically inducedcoma until next week after two rounds of surgery to rebuild hislung and remove bullet fragments. One fragment remained in hisbody ahead of surgery on Wednesday.
East Timor rebel leader Alfredo Reinado was killed byRamos-Horta's bodyguards in the pre-dawn attack on thepresident.
Monteiro said the bodies of Reinado and his guard would behanded over to their families today. Reinado would be buriedoutside Dili, he said, declining to name the area.
East Timor gained full independence from Indonesia in 2002after a U.N.-sponsored vote in 1999 that was marred byviolence.
Indonesian invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975,and many thousands of East Timorese died during the brutaloccupation.
(Additional reporting by Tito Belo in Dili and Rob Taylorin Canberra; Writing by Sara Webb; Editing by David Fogarty)
