Dili – Former pro-Indonesian militiamen are gradually slipping back into East Timor and resorting to banditry, a military source in Dili told Lusa Friday.

The officer said the latest evidence of the infiltration from Indonesia West Timor came from an ex-militiaman captured by police after a firefight Tuesday.

According to the officer, the captive, Daniel Mendes, told interrogators he was part of a six-man gang that had crossed the border planning to assault vehicles and rob villages to survive.

Mendes, a former member of the anti-independence Halilintar militia from the western Ermera area, said he entered East Timor last Sunday to join an armed group that crossed the border in November.

The firefight with the gang and Mendes' subsequent capture by police was the first concrete evidence of activities by former militiamen in East Timor in more than one year.

The military source told Lusa it was likely that other ex- militiamen would seek to return to home areas as bandits, "as a matter of survival, not politics".