Banda Aceh – Four bodies, believed to be the latest victims of conflict between separatist rebels and Indonesian security forces, have been found in troubled Aceh province, residents and police said yesterday.

Villagers had stumbled on a body bound to a pillar of the Teupin Gapeuh bridge in Tanah Pasir sub-district, North Aceh, on Wednesday, said North Aceh police chief Lt-Colonel Syafei Aksal. The victim, whose identity was unknown, had his hands tied behind him. The body also showed traces of strangulation and had several slash wounds on the head.

Two other bodies were found on a roadside in Darul Makmur sub-district, West Aceh on Wednesday. Residents said they had heard the sound of a car in the area in the early hours of Wednesday and believed the two men were killed elsewhere and dumped there.

The fourth body was found in Paya Tumpi in the Bebesan sub-district of central Aceh, also on Wednesday. "It had no identification and was already decomposing," said an emergency ward employee at the state hospital in Takengon, the main town in central Aceh.

Since 1976 the Aceh Merdeka Movement has been fighting for a free Islamic state in Aceh, an oil-rich province on the western tip of Sumatra island.

Daily clashes between Indonesian troops and the separatists, as well as reprisals from both sides, have already left some 250 people killed so far this year.