Banda Aceh – Two more people have been killed in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh where separatists have been fighting for an independent state since the 1970s, the military and an activist said Tuesday.

A suspected member of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) was shot dead by troops on patrol at Nurussalam in East Aceh on Monday, said an Aceh military spokesman, Major Zaenal Muttaqin.

The man was killed after eight rebels ambushed a motorcycle patrol of eight soldiers in the area, Muttaqin said, adding that a handgun had been found on the body.

The local GAM Spokesman, Ishak Daud, denied the victim was a rebel fighter and said that according to reports he had received he was a civilian driver.

The body of an unidentified man with a gunshot wound in his chest was found at Keude Bieng 10 kilometers south of Banda Aceh on Monday, a humanitarian activist said.

Violence involving government and rebel forces in Aceh left some 1,700 people dead last year. The two latest deaths bring the known death toll for the first three weeks of this year to 123.

Jakarta last year granted the resource-rich province at the northernmost tip of Sumatra island greater self-rule and a larger share of oil and gas revenues in an effort to reduce separatist sentiment.

It also allowed the province to implement Islamic law but ruled out independence as the GAM demands.