Banda Aceh – Violence in Indonesia's Aceh province has left at least five people dead since Thursday, hospital staff said.

The body of Abubakar Mohammad Diah, a 25-year-old teacher, with torture marks and gunshot wounds was found Friday in the Cot Tingkeum hills, near Meureudu in Pidie district, said local village chief Husni Latif. Latif said Diah had been arrested the day before by troops conducting a weapons search operation.

The body of another 25-year-old, Ibrahim, was found in the same condition Friday morning in Simpang Gunung Cut village in South Aceh. Employees of the Labuhan Haji hospital quoted relatives as saying that he had been kidnapped from a market by security forces on Thursday.

The body of Ibnu Abbas, also with gunshot wounds and torture marks, was recovered on Thursday from a ditch in Keude Simpang village in West Aceh's Seunagan subdistrict by local Red Cross officials, hospital workers told journalists.

Also on Thursday in South Aceh, residents there said two road construction workers were murdered by unknown gunmen in Cot Bayu village in Trumon subdistrict.

The deaths brought to 25 – five of them members of security forces – the number killed in the province since the government announced a new security campaign to quash rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) last Thursday.

Separately on Friday, the Banda Aceh-based Serambi newspaper quoted GAM Chief Commander Abdullah Syafiie as saying GAM had "no problem" should Jakarta decide to send more troops to Aceh.

"But unfortunately, they would only be killing civilians because they have no clue of our guerilla system ... I'm advising them not to be sent to Aceh," Syafiie said.