No one yet knows how much time INTERFET will need to secure the entire territory.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | East Timor: Step Forward, With Caution

Those "elements" have put up less resistance than might have been expected, yet enough to disrupt the INTERFET mission.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | East Timor: Step Forward, With Caution

Two Australian Interfet soldiers injured in a shootout with pro-Indonesia militiamen Wednesday were flown to Darwin for medical care.

CNN: ASIANOW - Asiaweek | Daily Briefing: New Stability in India?

Some 200, 000 people are believed to be in hiding in forests and mountains beyond the reach of aid agencies and Interfet.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

Tactically, in fact, the deployment of the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) has gone as smoothly as planners could have hoped.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | East Timor: Step Forward, With Caution

Cosgrove spoke of accelerating the deployment of nearly 4, 500 remaining INTERFET troops, which had been meant to take place over the next three weeks.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | East Timor: Step Forward, With Caution

's Interfet force and used along the border with West Timor.

CNN: Back in the Thick of It

On Oct. 19, at least 20 bodies were discovered in the coastal town of Liquica - the largest number Interfet has found in a single place.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

Interfet has yet to establish a firm presence in the area, and the locals say that militiamen are still hiding in the coffee plantations on the edge of town.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

About a fortnight ago, Interfet soldiers entered the deserted border town of Bilbao and came upon a boy carrying a written plea from people in Oecussi belonging to Falintil's political wing.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

Interfet is also only now beginning to get an idea of what might be transpiring in Oecussi, the East Timor enclave of some 91, 000 people which is actually within West Timor.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

At the moment, U.N. personnel refuse to speculate how many people have been killed, not least because they have been slow to move into the hinterland, waiting for Interfet to secure it first.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

Before Interfet troops entered the southwestern town of Suai, Falintil men armed with machetes and crude spears accompanied this reporter to a half-built church - a haunting end to a journalist's gruesome tour through East Timor.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

Significantly, elite troops of Australia's Special Air Service Regiment, understood to have infiltrated into East Timor in advance of Interfet's arrival in Dili Sept. 20, have already linked up with Falintil's Ruak in his mountain base.

CNN: Back in the Thick of It

In the tense border zone where integrationist militias appear to be girding for a campaign of cross-border destabilization and terror, overstretched Interfet forces will almost certainly need to rely on Falintil as their local eyes and ears.

CNN: Back in the Thick of It

With safety still an issue, Falintil's chief field commander, Taur Matan Ruak, has told people to return to their homes only to collect whatever food and possessions remain, then to go back to their hideouts until Interfet consolidates its hold over the territory.

CNN: 'This Was Systematic'

Even before foreign troops flooded into the city, Indonesian forces had begun to withdraw, removing what many thought would be the most likely--and dangerous--threat to the mission. (By the weekend at least 1, 500 troops were expected to remain in the territory, and the Indonesians were to hand over formal responsibility for security to INTERFET this week.) At the same time, though, evidence of the Indonesian army's handiwork began to surface.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | East Timor: Step Forward, With Caution