Jakarta – Nine people were killed in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh, days ahead of a planned trip by President Abdurrahman Wahid to try to stem violence amid a rising clamour for a referendum on self-rule.

A policeman and three suspected separatists were killed on Saturday in two skirmishes there, Aceh police spokesman Lt- Colonel Sayed Husaini told the official Antara news agency on Sunday.

The policeman was killed and another wounded in an ambush by suspected members of the Free Aceh Movement in the Idi Rayeuk area, Lt-Col Sayed said.

"Security forces failed to arrest members of the armed civilian gang because shortly after the ambush they quickly melted into the bush," he said.

The three separatists were killed in a gunfight earlier on Saturday following a pre-dawn ambush by rebels on police and soldiers conducting a patrol in the village of Alur Teh, the spokesman said.