Kevin Rudd's mission to East Timor yesterday was as much about fact-finding as it was about bolstering a government in crisis. On Monday after the shooting of President Jose Ramos Horta Rudd had agreed immediately to Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's request for more troops and police, and announced he would visit Dili as soon as possible. Now, almost a week later and with rebel leader Alfredo Reinado a martyr, it is still not known whether the shooting was a botched coup or a desperate attempt by the rebels to resolve their claims.

Ramos Horta had returned from his morning walk on the beach to find armed men in his house. In the ensuing battle between the rebels and the President's two guards, Reinado and another rebel were killed and Ramos Horta was seriously wounded. About 90 minutes later, rebels fired at the car carrying Gusmao, who escaped unharmed. The dramatic events mean Australian troops will have to remain in East Timor for an indefinite period.

"Australia is in there for the long run whether we like it or not," says Professor Hall Hill from the ANU. Rudd appeared at a press conference on Monday in Canberra, flanked by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon and Australian Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

"What we've had, apparently, are coordinated attacks aimed at assassinating the democratically elected leadership of East Timor, a close friend and partner of Australia. Australia will stand resolutely behind East Timor at this time of crisis in their democracy," he said.

"I've been around long enough in international relations to know that you wait for all the facts to be in before you reach definitive conclusions. What we know for a fact is that someone out there tried to assassinate the political leadership of our friend, partner and neighbour." Rudd said Gusmao had requested troops and solidarity.

"I believe that when you have got something as fundamentally destabilising as the attempted assassination of the entire senior democratically elected leadership of one of our neighbours, it is obviously a destabilising time with rogue elements at play. Therefore, an appropriate show of force is necessary. That is the judgment of the East Timorese, hence the request that they have made, hence why we have responded to that request."

John Howard sent troops or police to East Timor as well as PNG and the Solomons. He also put more soldiers on ready alert to handle regional crises.

That meant that when it was Rudd's turn to act as regional policeman, he was able to land extra troops in Dili very quickly. As reporters in Dili sorted facts from gossip, it became apparent that an inquiry would be needed to establish what happened.

On Tuesday Rudd said Australia had not established exactly what happened during the fire fights. "There is still a lot of uncertainty about what actually transpired," he said.

He would not comment on the adequacy of the President's security but said he had stayed at Ramos Horta's house. At that time, Australian soldiers were stationed outside.

On Thursday night's Lateline program on the ABC, Rudd said it had been hard to ascertain the facts because Australian personnel had not been guarding the two leaders. "We're still trying to sort out all the facts and it's pretty murky, to be honest," he said.

Jim Dunn does not think the rebels were attempting a coup. As a former Australian consul in Dili, he knows the area well. He questions why the rebels would attack the President and Prime Minister. "That would be the worst way to organise a coup because the houses are miles away from Dili," he says.

"As for killing them, what would be the point? Reinado has been going around leading this gang but he hasn't really hurt anyone, he hasn't killed anybody. "The image he had created was somebody who was able to elude capture but also he was a man of peace. If he had carried out an execution, it would have destroyed his support."

Dunn's early reading of the situation is that it was a daring scheme to force a meeting with the President on the rebels' terms. "If this is correct it was a typical example of Reinado's bravado that went terribly wrong." Dunn does not believe the shootings are necessarily bad news for East Timor's future.

"In the short term there will be a lot of uneasiness around, but if the Government handles it well then it could be used to try to bring in a new sort of era of peace." He would like the Australian soldiers to be part of a United Nations' mission. "So, for one thing, if things go wrong, Australians aren't blamed for it."

Dr Dennis Shoesmith from Charles Darwin University agrees. He says that during a Security Council debate in 2006, Australia insisted the new military mission be Australian-led, despite the former intervention force in Timor being under UN command.

The Howard government got its way, with the support of the United States and Britain. "From that time, the international stabilisation force was seen by many Timorese as an Australian force," Shoesmith says. "That means it is seen as partisan, so you get articles coming out saying it is time for the Australian troops to go. If they did go, there'd be chaos. But there is a view in East Timor that Australia is pursuing its interests and will use this crisis to prolong its control.

"I'm not saying that is necessarily credible but the fact that it's an Australian-led force not a UN-led force sort of confirms that to the critics. The danger with that is that we are perceived in some quarters as neocolonialists or imperialists or whatever and that we are pursuing Australia's national interests and not being dispassionate and disinterested good friends."

Shoesmith says the shooting of Ramos Horta changes the landscape. "Hopefully it will shock people into reconsidering the kinds of disputes they are pursuing."

Independence from Indonesia has not delivered peace to East Timor. The tiny nation is split by ongoing political rivalries. There is often resort to armed forces to pursue political agendas. Ongoing civil strife has been worsened by the failure of authorities to lift living standards, despite the start of oil and gas revenues.

In 2006, a game of brinksmanship between then president Gusmao and then prime minister Mari Alkatiri saw the country descending into lawlessness.

The violence increased after 600 members of the 1400-strong army were sacked. Reinado, a former military police commander, led his followers into the mountains behind Dili and refused to give up weapons until Alkatiri resigned as prime minister.

Foreign troops returned to restore calm but the political instability continues. A recent spark was a video produced by Reinado in which he accused Gusmao of being involved in a plot in 2007 to get rid of Alkatiri. Then there's the ongoing problem that the hard-line Fretilin party rejects the legitimacy of the coalition Government.

"What the country needs if it is going to go through a period of stabilisation is a governing elite that accept the rules of the game and work with each other," Shoesmith says. "It's a very fractious and dangerous situation. My view is that if the international peace-keeping groups left, as they did in 2005, there'd be another civil war."

The Rudd Government will keep the soldiers there while continuing to be diplomatic about East Timor's previous order to Australian troops to stop hunting for Reinado, to open the way for negotiations with the rebel leader and the sacked soldiers.

A sovereign nation takes care of its own affairs but Australia is ready to help when the situation gets out of control. In Dili yesterday Rudd was promising to "stand shoulder to shoulder'