Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Friday that 350 Australian troops had been deployed in the strife-torn Timor-Leste and the remainder of the promised 1, 300 Australian troops would be there by the end of the weekend.

The troops arrived there as heavy fighting broke out in Dili, capital of Timor-Leste (East Timor), on Thursday. The United Nations reported that army soldiers opened fire on unarmed police Thursday, killing nine and injuring 27 others in the country which the United Nations shepherded to independence from Indonesia in 2002.

The hour-long fighting ended after UN. police and military advisers negotiated a cease-fire with the Timorese soldiers under which the police were to surrender their weapons and leave the building.

UN personnel evacuated the wounded and rescued some 62 additional Timor-Leste police officers and they are now being sheltered in the UN compound.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday that in view of the deteriorating security and complex political situation, he decided to send Ian Martin, head of the UN Human Rights Mission in Nepal, to Dili to assess the situation first hand.

Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Malaysia have promised to send troops to the Asian country to maintain peace and order there.

Reports from Dili said that sound of heavy machine-gun fire and other weapons were heard from the hills surrounding Dili Friday. The streets in the city were virtually deserted.

Several countries have decided to withdraw their nationals from the country under the deteriorating situation.

The dispute started in March after Timor-Leste's 14,000-strong army fired nearly 40 percent of its troops following a month-long strike to protest alleged discrimination in the military.

Some of the dismissed soldiers fled the capital and set up positions in the surrounding hills, threatening guerrilla warfare if they were not reinstated.

Source: Xinhua