Jakarta – Two aircraft passengers were wounded when separatist rebels in Aceh province yesterday attacked the police posted at an airport run by an Indonesian subsidiary of Mobil Oil Inc, a rebel spokesman said.

The passengers were injured when stray bullets hit a company plane which had just landed at the airport in the industrial city of Lhokseumawe in North Aceh, said Mr Ismail Sahputra, a spokesman for the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The nationality of the victims, who were rushed to a company clinic, was not immediately available. "The Free Aceh Movement is not responsible for the destruction of the Mobil Oil facilities nor is it responsible for the human casualties. We have repeatedly warned the company's management not to place any Indonesian troops on their site," Mr Sahputra told AFP. "We have no intention of attacking the company and are not dealing with it but with the Indonesian military," he said.

The spokesman warned that similar attacks would be launched if the company maintained Indonesian security forces at its site. Mobil Oil Indonesia operates the Arun field, one of Indonesia's two largest gas fields, and the airport normally serves two flights daily to Medan, the capital of neighbouring North Sumatra province. Aceh, on the western tip of Sumatra island, has been wracked by clashes between Indonesian troops and GAM rebels who have been fighting for an independent Islamic state since 1976.