By Greg Ansley
with our troops
DILI - British Gurkhas freed more than 2000 East Timorese hostages after a brief gunbattle with their militia captors, while Australian troops yesterday launched a drive towards the volatile border with Indonesian West Timor.
The freeing of the hostages in the northeast of the island was the first occasion on which international peacemakers have returned fire.
United Nations troops also seized two truckloads of heavycalibre ammunition hidden by the militia, including 12.7mm machinegun rounds, rockets, detonators and hand grenades.
As events accelerated after the lull since the first peacemakers landed two weeks ago, soldiers disarmed seven Falintil pro-independence fighters, and a militia suspect was badly beaten on the streets of Dili.
The man suspected of militia membership had his jaw broken in a brutal attack by members of the Commission for Timorese Resistance, the political body that will form the nucleus of an independent East Timor.
The dramatic rescue of the hostages was effected on Wednesday near Com, in the northeast, where New Zealand SAS soldiers this week swept down on a militia arms cache.
Gurkhas leading a humanitarian aid convoy to Banchu and Lospalos sent a platoon into the bush near Com when they were told that militiamen were holding more than 2000 people at gunpoint. The Nepalese found a unit of 12 militiamen with assault rifles who fled to the hills after a brief gunbattle in which no one was injured.
Two militiamen were arrested and the rest later tried to broker a surrender through a priest and community leaders during a standoff that degenerated into a fight among the militiamen and another run for the hills.
Pursuing Gurkhas captured one more militiaman before driving on to the badly damaged towns where they were met with banners and cheering crowds.
In the west, the push from the town of Balibo - where five journalists, including a New Zealander, were killed in 1975 - will take the Australians into the island's most dangerous region, with the possibility of further tension with Indonesia. They have been told to remain strictly on the eastern side of the border, ruling out pursuit into Indonesian West Timor.
Operation Lavarack was launched as helicopter flights over the western regions reported continuing militia activity, even greater damage to already-stricken towns and militiamen setting new fires in the ruins of Suai, in the southwestern corner of the island.
In a lightning operation involving Blackhawk helicopters and naval landing craft, the Australians stormed ashore in armoured vehicles, meeting no resistance as they moved into Balibo and surrounding areas on the northwest coast.
