Banda Aceh – Gunmen killed a local government official on Thursday in the latest violence to rock the rebellious Indonesian province of Aceh, police said.

The secretary of the North Aceh district administration, Muchlis Ali, was shot dead by two unidentified attackers in the city of Lhokseumawe, said local police spokesman Adjunct Commissioner Adi Marwan.

Ali was on his way to work when his chauffeur-driven car was ambushed. Marwan blamed the killing on the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). "The attackers shot the victim twice in his head," Marwan said.

But the deputy chief of military operations in Aceh, Brigadier General Djali Yusuf, said the murder was linked to a dispute over a project in North Aceh. He did not elaborate. "The victim had earlier received phone threats," Yusuf told reporters.

A GAM spokesman, Teungku Jamaica, said police killed a civilian during a search for rebels in the Lhong Baro area of North Aceh on Wednesday.

In another incident, a man believed to be a GAM guerrilla was shot dead by an undentified man in the district of Dewantara on Tuesday night, residents said.

A local rights group says more than 1,500 people have been killed this year in resource-rich Aceh. GAM has been fighting since 1976 to set up an indepencent Islamic state.