U.N. guards E. Timor leaders

Armored U.N. vehicles were guarding East Timor’s leaders today and a beefed-up contingent of Australian troops patrolled streets and searched cars in the wake of rebel attacks Monday on the president and prime minister.

The army chief has blamed the United Nations, which oversees a 1,400-member international police force, for failing to protect the country’s top leaders and demanded an outside investigation.

But the U.N. deputy head for East Timor said President Jose Ramos-Horta had wanted his security to be provided by national authorities, so he was not under U.N. protection when the attackers struck.

Ramos-Horta was airlifted to an Australian hospital for surgery, and his condition has been described as serious but stable.

East Timor, a poor Southeast Asian nation of 1 million people, won independence from Indonesia in 2002 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot. It has struggled to achieve stability since an outbreak of violence in 2006, when 37 people were killed in clashes between rival security forces.

Ramos-Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent resistance during 24 years of Indonesian occupation, was shot in the chest and stomach on the road in front of his house. The attack was an apparent coup attempt by a group of disgruntled soldiers.

His guards returned fire, killing rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, who was blamed for the 2006 violence and vowed two weeks ago to try again to destabilize the government.

Gunmen attacked Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao’s motorcade an hour later, but he escaped unhurt.

Australia’s troop presence in the tiny country climbed to more than 1,000 with the arrival Tuesday of a warship and more than 300 police officers and soldiers. Some patrolled streets and set up roadblocks in Dili, the capital. The country was generally calm.