Dili, Oct. 25 (AP): East Timor's international airport was closed Wednesday after two men were killed in nearby clashes between rival gangs in the country's capital, airport and hospital officials said.

The shootings came amid escalating violence in recent days in which four people have been killed and more than 50 wounded, said Antonio Caleres, director of East Timor's main hospital.

East Timor has been plagued by instability since an outbreak of violence left at least 33 dead and drove 155,000 people from their homes in April and May, following the dismissal by the government of one third of the military.

Foreign peacekeepers took over national security, but incidents of unrest have continued as the country remains split over attitudes toward the more than two decades of Indonesian occupation that ended in 1999.

The recent spate of violence began Sunday when two men were stabbed to death near a church during evening prayers, five days after the release of a United Nations report on the causes of the conflict earlier this year.

In the report, the special U.N. commission largely blamed the government of former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri for the wave of killings earlier this year, saying two members of his Cabinet allegedly armed civilian militias.

In fighting Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, two men were shot and killed and at least 12 were injured by machete and stone throwing in the Comoro neighborhood, Caleres and relatives said. Among the injured were an Australian citizen and two Portuguese police officers, officials and media reports said.

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said isolated violence had continued virtually throughout Wednesday near the airport, where at least a dozen homes were set alight.

Attempts to reopen the airstrip were abandoned at nightfall and were to resume Thursday morning, he said. ``U.N. police reported that the situation was not calm, but at least it's heading in that direction.''

The U.N. had ``no information suggesting linkage with the report,'' Edwards said of the recent unrest. ``If there is a link, that will hopefully become clear in next few days.''

Lino Mesquita, a village chief in the Comoro area, which is often a flash point for violence in the capital, said the U.N. report made the situation ``very complicated.''

Caleres, the hospital director, also suggested a link between the bloodshed and the report: ``So far, four people died and 47 people were injured, 13 of them in critical condition, since the announcement of the U.N. report.''

Romaldo da Silva, director of East Timor's Civil Aviation Authority, said the airport would be closed until security was restored. Fighting on the main road connecting downtown Dili and the airport had cut off all traffic, he said.

International peacekeepers fired rubber bullets at groups of battling youths Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, said an Associated Press reporter at the scene. The peacekeepers patrolled the city in Blackhawk helicopters as ambulances shuttled the wounded to the local hospital, the reporter said.

Also Wednesday, the Australian Defense Force said in a statement one of its soldiers, part of a foreign peacekeeping mission, had fired shots in self defense Wednesday morning at an armed man who approached one of its positions at the airport.

The man fled and his condition was unknown.