Associated Press, Waimori – The international peacekeeping force is being too cautious in dealing with the remnants of the militias which ravaged East Timor, the commander of the pro-independence guerillas said yesterday.

Dafna Linzer, Kupang, – In the ramshackle Tuapukan camp, home to 10,000 refugees from East Timor's chaos, Indonesia's red-and-white flag flies proudly above unfinished roofs of dried palm fronds and straw.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Australian soldiers have taken control of two towns in militia heartland along East Timor's volatile border with Indonesian West Timor, in their biggest operation since landing in the territory 12 days ago.

Dili – The bodies of 13 people, many of them showing traces of violence, have been found in a mass grave near Dili, a spokesman for the United Nations said on Saturday.

Agencies in Dili, Los Palos and Jakarta – British Gurkha soldiers yesterday arrested two members of a group of East Timorese militiamen who were holding more than 4,000 people in the eastern port of Com, military sources said.

The militiamen appeared to be preparing to move the 4,000 people out of the territory, the sources said.

Dili – The mutilated and charred remains of at least nine people were discovered in a burnt-out pickup truck on the outskirts of Dili Wednesday, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Waimori – Pro-independence guerillas said yesterday they had seized control of most of the eastern part of East Timor after clashes with retreating militia and Indonesian soldiers.

Mark Dodd, Dili – When paramilitary toughs supported by Indonesia's discredited military force in East Timor finally set down their cans of petrol and matches, hundreds of innocent people had been killed, tens of thousands made homeless and whole towns and villages razed.

The multinational force in East Timor must rapidly expand to start building peace and security in the territory, East Timorese leaders Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta told correspondents at a press conference, sponsored by Portugal, at Headquarters this afternoon.

Craig Skehan, Jakarta – East Timorese independence supporters say they are being terrorised in Jakarta and elsewhere by militiamen with shadowy political connections.

Jakarta – The commander of the East Timorese militia has ordered his men to halt their campaign of terror, and apologize to their victims, the state Antara news agency said Tuesday.

East Timorese refugees in Indonesia, including the resort island of Bali, are being threatened with death by soldiers and militiamen, but plans for a large-scale evacuation are being delayed by the reluctance of foreign governments to accept large numbers of refugees.

Lisbon – Nine church workers including two nuns and a priest have been shot dead by Indonesian troops in the eastern part of East Timor, Bishop Basilio do Nascimento told Portuguese television on Monday.

The Bishop of Baucau said the group, all of whom worked for the Baucau diocese, were gunned down on Saturday and their bodies dumped in a river.

Mark Dodd, Dili – A vast cache of documentary and forensic evidence linking Jakarta's involvement to hardline pro-Indonesian militias accused of horrendous human rights abuses continues to lie unsecured in Dili one week after the arrival of Australian-led peacekeepers.

Keith B. Richburg, Kupang – They fled here in abject retreat, packed onto trucks scrawled with the names of their militia gangs and bringing with them their assault rifles, machetes and dreams of revenge.

Michael Zielenziger, Dili – His eyes are rheumy and his legs are weak, but for a man in his 80s, Manuel Francisco Gusmao looks fairly healthy – considering the father of resistance leader Xanana Gusmao was reported on September 7 to have been killed by pro-Jakarta militia.

Stephanie Nebehay, Geneva – Asian and Western states failed to agree yesterday on whether to launch a UN inquiry into killings in East Timor, and a UN Commission on Human Rights special session on the issue was due to resume on Monday.

Louise Williams, Darwin – Several days before he was killed in East Timor, the Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes was discussing his concerns over the political manipulations behind the public face of the Indonesian Government and military, and the violence and death that power struggle would wreak.

Philippe Naughton, Dili – UN forces tightened their grip on Dili on Saturday and began venturing into East Timor's interior to secure routes for desperately needed aid.

Kalinga Seneviratne – Australia has taken the high moral ground in organising the rescue of the East Timorese people, perhaps 25 years too late.

Dili – Multinational troops clamped down on East Timor's militia with a raid and a high-profile arrest Friday and issued warnings against Indonesian soldiers wreaking havoc as they retreat.

The soldiers have burned their barracks behind them and let out volleys of automatic gunfire in defiant parting gestures as they are shipped out of the territory.

Doug Struck, Dili – As a large contingent of Indonesian troops marched to the port to withdraw from East Timor today, the international peacekeeping force here tightened its control of this capital city.

Sydney – A map smuggled out of West Timor purports to outline Indonesian plans to disperse 100,000 East Timorese across the archipelago, Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio said Friday.

Nature has taken over the garden of Manuel Carrascalao's house in Dili. Tall weeds grow between paving stones and flies buzz in the air. As you approach the well at the back of the garden, the soft hum of millions of maggots becomes audible.

Jakarta – Journalist Sander Thoenes, found dead in East Timor yesterday, recently exposed a US$250-million scandal at a company controlled by the brother of Lt-General Prabowo Subianto, the former commander of Indonesia's elite special forces or Kopassus.

Bernard Lagan – Suspected supporters of East Timor's independence were executed on ships taking refugees from the territory and their bodies dumped in the sea, according to witness accounts collected by an Australian election observer who has just returned from Kupang, West Timor.

Jakarta – Indonesia on Thursday lifted martial law in East Timor and said it expected to hand over control of security in the territory to the UN-approved force there on Friday or Saturday.

At Least 100 members of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI) in East Timor have deserted and joined the pro-independence Falintil guerrilla movement, in a further indication of discord within TNI ranks.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – The thugs of Dili's streets disappeared quickly. When the first Australian soldiers arrived in full combat dress, their rifles at the ready, the militiamen pretended they were the very refugees they had terrorised for weeks.

Anne-Marie Evans – Eurico Guterres, leader of the Aitarak anti-independence militia, was made the head of a clandestine military-funded organisation earlier this year and supplied with guns and money, a source said yesterday.

Lauren Martin – East Timorese resistance leaders had "disappeared" from militia-guarded refugee camps across the border, and the mainly women and children who remained were at risk of becoming hostages to other vigilantes, a Senate committee heard in Canberra yesterday.

Singapore – An American journalist and activist deported from Indonesia said Monday he was convinced armed forces chief General Wiranto was behind the militia killings in East Timor.

Allan Nairn was in Dili for about two weeks before Indonesian authorities detained him for violating visa regulations by entering the country as a tourist.

Jill Jolliffe, Darwin – East Timorese independence guerrilla commanders warn that Indonesian forces are preparing to resist United Nations troops.

Speaking from the Los Palos district, the deputy chief of the Falintil army, Mr Lere Anan Timor, said Indonesian soldiers were threatening to "kill the international troops, using the [pro-Jakarta] militia".

Lewa Pardomuan, Dili – Nine warships of a multinational UN peace force sailed for East Timor on Saturday and the force commander was expected to hold talks with the Indonesian military in the shattered territory on Sunday.

Joanna Jolly in Darwin and Irwan Firdaus of Associated Press in Baucau – As international troops prepare to go into East Timor, fearful refugees are coming down from the mountains in the territory and returning to homes still smouldering and in ruins.

Lisbon – Indonesian soldiers and militiamen are laying mines in Dili, the capital of East Timor, as they stream out of the province ahead of the arrival of a multinational peace force, a resistance leader told Portuguese radio Friday.

Philip Cornford – An assistant to East Timor's spiritual leader, Bishop Carlos Belo, claimed yesterday that he saw the Indonesian intelligence official Major-General Syafrie Syamsuddin direct the separation of boys and men from refugees forced from Bishop Belo's home 11 days ago.

Anne-Marie Evans, Macau – The political cleansing of East Timor was planned as early as February, one of the militia leaders present at a meeting which hatched the deadly plot has revealed.

Anne-Marie Evans, Macau – Rui Lopes could count former president Suharto's son-in-law, Prabowo Subianto, and General Gleny in Jakarta among his closest friends.

They have been fighting and working together since the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Since 1985, Mr Lopes, 47, had also been working for Xanana Gusmao's resistance guerillas.

Jakarta – The deputy commander of East Timor's pro-Indonesia militia has warned that the militia will put eight of the territory's 13 districts off limits to multinational troops, a report said Thursday.

Dennis Schulz and Louise Williams – Pro-Indonesian militias are fleeing East Timor ahead of the arrival of peacekeepers, some saying they fear they will now be killed by Indonesian troops to wipe out evidence of Jakarta's leading role in the carnage.

Sydney – Pro-Jakarta militia are harassing East Timorese refugees throughout the eastern islands of Indonesia, an Australian aid agency said Thursday.

Janet Hunt, executive director of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA), said the situation was dangerous in Flores, Lombok and Bali – a popular holiday spot.

Bernard Lagan, Darwin – Two suspected East Timorese militia members and a suspected Indonesian soldier are being held by Australian authorities after infiltrating the UN compound in Dili and being flown by the RAAF with 1400 refugees to Darwin.

Strasbourg – Deputies at the European parliament on Thursday passed a resolution demanding that the European Union (EU) and its member states recognise an independent East Timor.

The UN forces in East Timor at first are likely to be involved more in fighting terrorism than keeping the peace, argues Hugh Smith.

Doug Lorimer – The Democratic Socialist Party has called on supporters of democracy in Australia to mobilise to demand that the UN and/or the Australian government immediately send troops to East Timor to help the East Timorese people resist and defeat the Indonesian occupying army's genocidal campaign to physically extinguish the East Timorese people's struggle for liberation from

One of the few journalists remaining in East Timor is Allan Nairn, Who writes for The Nation. We caught up with him in Dili today and asked him about the reaction there to news of an international peacekeeping mission.

Hong Kong – The Indonesian foreign ministry organized and paid for leaders of the pro-Indonesian militia in East Timor to be trained in public relations ahead of the recent election, the Far Eastern Economic Review said Wednesday.

Compere: Which brings us to the war crimes issue more generally. And fresh evidence is emerging of the Indonesian military's complicity in the crimes against humanity in East Timor. The Senate Committee on East Timor heard first-hand accounts today of TNI links with the militias that rampaged through the country before and after the referendum. Karon Snowdon reports:

Macau – A former pro-Jakarta militiaman has claimed that Indonesian forces eliminated more than 2,000 East Timorese by dumping them in waters off the East Timor coast.