DILI, East Timor – The rebels jumped from two cars, firing machine guns as they stormed the compound of President Jose Ramos-Horta. “Traitor! Traitor!” they shouted, hunting for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

In one of the most detailed accounts yet of Monday’s assassination attempt, a guard described how he killed fugitive rebel commander Alfredo Reinado before the president returned from an early morning walk on the beach.

“I shouted Alfredo’s name and then opened fire at his head with my machine gun because he was wearing a bulletproof vest,” the guard told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is prohibited from talking to the media about the attack.

“I fired many times, I don’t know how many times,” said the guard, who was back on duty Tuesday in his uniform.

But gunmen lying in a ditch then shot the president in the chest and stomach.

Along with a separate strike against the prime minister an hour later, the events plunged East Timor into fresh crisis just six years after it voted to break free from decades of brutal Indonesian rule.

Doctors on Wednesday said Ramos-Horta – who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent campaign against the 24-year occupation – was stable and recovering well from gunshot wounds, but remained in “extremely serious” condition at an Australian hospital.

Parliament extended a 48-hour state of emergency by 10 days until Feb. 23 due to concerns about more unrest. Funerals for the rebels will be held Thursday and plans were under way to issue arrest warrants for 18 suspects in the shootings.

The attack on Ramos-Horta was led by Reinado, who was wanted on murder charges for his role in a 2006 surge of violence that left dozens dead. Last month, he threatened to march on the capital with his men if the government ignored demands to reinstate hundreds of mutinous soldiers.

“Alfredo Reinado was a traitor and I will gladly go hunt down and fight the others responsible for this attack,” said the guard who detailed how he fatally shot the fugitive rebel commander. Two other guards interviewed by the AP on Tuesday corroborated the account.

A friend of Ramos-Horta’s who spoke on condition of anonymity because the shooting is under investigation, said Monday’s battle raged for around 30 minutes before the president heard shots.

No U.N. police or foreign troops intervened in the shootout, because Ramos-Horta had said he only wanted protection from Timorese forces, said the U.N.’s deputy country head, Finn Reske-Nielsen.

The shots that hit Ramos-Horta were fired by men laying in wait across from the main entrance to the residence, after Reinado and his bodyguard Leopoldinho da Costa, had been shot dead, the guard said.The attack – in which rebel forces slipped into the capital, Dili, using cars with government license places – has raised questions about who was responsible for protecting the president and why more than 2,000 foreign police and soldiers could not prevent it.