Jakarta – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta has supported the US-led air attacks on Afghanistan, saying his people have personal experience of the "scourge of terrorism."

The Nobel peace laureate, in a commentary in Tuesday's International Herald Tribune, said the use of force against Osama bin Laden, his terrorist network and the Taliban regime which shelters them was "inevitable and necessary."

"Peoples of all religions must overcome the barriers of suspicion and prejudice and make common cause against the scourge of terrorism, whether state-sponsored or not," Ramos Horta said.

After East Timorese voted overwhelmingly in August 1999 to break from Indonesia, pro-Jakarta militias supported by sections of the Indonesian military unleashed a reign of terror and destruction. This was ended by the arrival of a multinational peacekeeping force including contingents from Muslim countries.

"How could we East Timorese today profess a false pacifism in relation to terrorism and Afghanistan?" said Ramos Horta. "Such an attitude, in the face of evil, leads to inaction and betrayal of the victims of oppression. "For this reason I endorse the use of force against the Tailiban regime. It has taken Afghanistan back to the Dark Ages."

Ramos Horta, whose territory is due to achieve full independence next year, urged Washington also to address the conditions in which terrorism can breed with a "new Marshall Plan." This should aim to eradicate poverty in the world's poorest regions including Afghanistan.