Ambon – An angry mob beheaded two people as the death toll mounted in Indonesia's far eastern Moluccas, residents and officials said on Friday.

The two were attacked on Thursday after they had disembarked from a ship at Tual, the main town on Kai Besar island, a local journalist who saw the bodies said.

On Friday military officials found 12 more bodies from previous clashes in a village on Kai Besar, about 3,300 km east of Jakarta. "We promise to remove them soon," said Colonel Karel Ralahalu, military commander of the province.

There were also unconfirmed reports of one death on Friday in Masohi town in the central Moluccas' Seram island, residents said.

A military official in Ambon, the province's main city, told Reuters that the head of a special military team, Major-General Suaidy Marabessy, was on his way to Masohi.