Banda Aceh – Seven people, including two soldiers were killed in the latest violence in the restive Indonesian province of Aceh, residents and police said Wednesday.
The victims died in three districts just days ahead of a meeting between government representatives and Aceh rebel forces in Geneva on Saturday to decide on whether to extend a three-month truce.
On Wednesday at least eight trucks of Indonesian soldiers searched the Lhoksukon subdistrict in North Aceh after rebels attacked a patrol in the area Tuesday, killing two soldiers, residents there said. "There has been no armed contact so far, but the population in Lhoksukon is scared," a resident told AFP, declining to give his name.
Tuesday's attack was directed against troops assigned to guard facilities of the Exxon Mobil oil and gas company, who were escorting a convoy of heavy machinery and three minibuses carrying company employees to a company work site.
The truck carrying the soldiers was hit by men armed with a grenade launcher and automatic rifles including M-16s and AK47s, in Simpang Brandang Tuesday, North Aceh military commander Lieutenant Colonel Suyatno said. Two soldiers were killed and two others were injured, Suyatno said.
The rebel commander for the North Aceh area, Abu Sofyan Daud, said the attack was launched after the military failed to respond to their call to halt operations in villages to search for rebels and their supporters.
Armed clashes between government and rebel forces were also reported Tuesday in Simpang Alue in Matangkuli subdistrict and in Paya Bili, Muara Dua subistrict, Daud said.
In the Syamtalira Arun subdistrict of North Aceh, an unidentified man shot dead the leader of the Muslim United Development Party faction at the district parliament, Teungku Ilyas Ibrahim, at his home late on Tuesday," a local journalist told AFP. Three shots were fired at Ibrahim when he answered the door, the journalist said.
In Kutamakmur subdistrict, villagers in Blang Abeuk found two decomposed bodies believed to be victims of violence, North Aceh district police chief Superintendent Abadan Bangko said. Residents in Sarah Mane in the neighbouring district of Pidie on Tuesday also found the bodies of two men with gunshot wounds.
In Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh, a group of men threw a bomb into the house of the Aceh deputy police chief Teuku Ashikin, in the Simpang Tiga area some two hours before midnight, Aceh Besar district police chief Superintendent Sayed Husaini said. But the home-made bomb broke only window panes at the back of the house and there were no casualties, Husaini said.
Jakarta and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for an Islamic state in Aceh since 1976, signed a truce in May in a bid to stop escalating violence in the oil-rich province. The truce, dubbed a "humanitarian pause", expired on September 2 but has been temporarily extended to September 16.
Separatism in Aceh has been fuelled by deep resentment over 10 years of harsh military operations to wipe out the GAM, and over the syphoning off by Jakarta of the province's rich natural resources. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has said his government will not tolerate independence in Aceh, but would grant it broad autonomy before the end of the year.