Free Republic

AUSTRALIAN troops came under fire in East Timor yesterday as they faced down armed thugs and rescued women, children and wounded civilians. Late yesterday they stopped machete-wielding mobs charging a hotel in the capital, Dili, where Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was about to hold a news conference. The troops, who had to call in reinforcements, disarmed gangs carrying machetes, knives, spiked poles, slingshots and arrows. No one was hurt. The Australians took control without firing a shot. Earlier, troops appeared overwhelmed before reinforcements, backed by armoured personnel carriers, moved quickly into Dili's smoke-filled streets. The street fighting was the worst...

THIS week Australia assumed responsibility for a new state: the poor, unstable and violent nation of East Timor. Our 1300-strong troop intervention has been triggered by the failure of East Timor's political system, a crisis within its armed forces, an internal ethnic rift between east and west regions and the combination of an inept Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, and an immobilised President, Xanana Gusmao, who cannot work together but who have made a joint appeal for Australian help. This is Australia's largest ground force intervention since the 1999 Interfet operation, the international force authorised by the UN Security Council that...