Attack injures president of East Timor

JAKARTA, INDONESIA —  A renegade soldier shot and wounded East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta early today, and gunmen later fired on the prime minister’s motorcade but missed.

Ramos-Horta’s guards killed rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, a former military police major, during the assault on the president’s home. Reinado was wanted on murder charges in connection with political unrest in 2006, when he led a rebel force of several hundred deserters.

Ramos-Horta was exercising outside his home when gunmen in two sport-utility vehicles sped up about 6:15 a.m., Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said at a news conference this morning.

When he heard gunfire, the president ran toward his house and was shot in the stomach, Gusmao said.

The president’s guards drove off most of the attackers in a 20-minute gun battle.

A couple of hours after that assault, Gusmao told reporters, gunmen blocked his car and opened fire.

Australian military doctors operated on Ramos-Horta in a hospital near the capital, Dili, and he was reportedly in stable condition. A bullet that struck him in the back passed through his stomach, said East Timor Foreign Minister Zacarias de Costa.

A hospital in the Australian city of Darwin said it was on alert to treat Ramos-Horta if, as expected, he was flown there.

United Nations peacekeepers were maintaining order in Dili’s streets.

Ramos-Horta, 58, received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Bishop Carlos Belo in 1996, honoring what the awards committee called “their work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.”

The former Portuguese colony was annexed by Indonesia in 1975. Ramos-Horta was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor and was a prominent spokesman in exile for the independence movement.

When East Timor won independence in 2002, Ramos-Horta became foreign minister.

He took over as prime minister four years later when the government collapsed and the country appeared on the verge of civil war.

He was sworn in as East Timor’s second president last May.

In May 2006, Reinado led a rebel assault on government buildings in Dili, a revolt that was crushed by troops from Australia, Portugal and Malaysia. The uprising left 37 people dead and at least 150,000 homeless.

Ethnic and political rivalries continue to divide the country. Gunmen loyal to Reinado, who had escaped from prison last year, were suspected in a number of recent attacks on Australian troops.

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Jouhana reported from Jakarta and Watson from Manila.