23 people killed amid ongoing East Timor violence

Foreign troops today struggled to stave off civil war in East Timor after soldiers gunned down unarmed police in the capital and a mob torched a house filled with children, as the death toll in four days of violence climbed to 23.

Members of the tiny country’s 800-member army attacked the national police headquarters yesterday, accusing police of allying themselves with a large band of dismissed soldiers who have engaged in street battles with the military in Dili.