Jakarta – The Indonesian military on Thursday sent hundreds of troops into troubled Aceh province to search for the bodies of seven soldiers killed in an ambush and find three others held hostage.
Police said some 400 army personnel were rushed from neigboring North Sumatra province to help local security forces locate the bodies and hostages, and hunt the killers. "The national police headquarters has sent 128 personnel of the mobile brigade from the capital Jakarta," East Aceh deputy police chief Major Muhammad Akmil told AFP.
Akmil said seven soldiers were killed when hundreds of villagers ambushed buses passing through Lhok Nibong village in the Simpang Ulim district on Tuesday. Police and residents said groups of "intimidators" stopped buses to check the identities of passengers, and harrassed those found to be members of the armed forces.
Eighteen off-duty soldiers were dragged out of the buses and seven were tortured and killed during the ambush, which the government blamed on separatist militants. He said five bodies were thrown into the Arakundu River and another two dumped in another river.
The military was also searching for three hostages held by a group identified by the army as "Free Aceh" separatists in North Aceh. "We haven't yet located the three. But we believe they are alive because two of their colleagues who escaped the attack were unharmed," said North Aceh deputy police chief Major Amrin Remico.
The three were among five soldiers taken hostage by a crowd on Wednesday in Blang Panjang village in the Muara Dua district of North Aceh less than 24 hours after the ambush. Two escaped. In a separate incident, North Aceh police on Wednesday fired warning shots when 800 people attacked a police station in Banda Sakti sub-district, setting fire to two cars and five motorbikes. Banda Sakti is some 50 kilometers from the scene of the bus ambush.
The ambushes and attacks reignited fears of separatist tensions in the province on the western tip of Indonesia, which has a long history of determined opposition to Dutch colonialists, the Japanese army in World War II and now the Jakarta government.
Regional military commander Major General Ismed Yuzairi said Thursday the military is hunting the leader of the Free Aceh movement Ahmad Kandang. "The military is running after Ahmad Kandang, one of the leaders who provoked people to do brutal activities in Aceh," Yuzairi was quoted as saying by the state Antara news agency. The private TPI television meanwhile quoted Yuzairi as denying the army would reimpose a special military status in the province.
Armed forces chief General Wiranto has blamed the "Free Aceh" Islamic separatist movement for the first attack. The group has been waging a low-level war a separate Islamic state for decades. "The same old groups who want Aceh's independence" were behind the killings, Wiranto said. He warned the violence could jeopardize a military withdrawal from the province. He said 25 people had been detained.
"This was not the work of citizens, nor the work of Aceh people who hope to see an end to the military operation zone," Wiranto added. A resurgence of Free Aceh Movement activity in the late 1980s prompted the military to declare Aceh a special zone in which troops from outside the province were deployed to quash the rebel movement.
After the special military status was lifted this year fact-finding teams visited the province and exhumed mass graves containing hundreds of corpses of people allegedly slaughtered by the military.