Banda Aceh – Three Indonesian soldiers, a policeman and a rebel were killed in separate incidents of violence in the restive Indonesian province of Aceh on Monday, police said.
"Three soldiers securing the Dayah Tanoh village in the Gleumpang Tiga subdistrict of Pidie district were killed this morning," Aceh police operations spokesman Senior Superintendent Kusbini Imbar said here.
He said the three soldiers were part of a team of 10 deployed to guard the area, some 18 kilometres east of the district town of Sigli, to ensure security against the Aceh Merdeka separatist movement (GAM).
The trio were resting at a small outpost when rebels attacked with a grenade launcher, Imbar said, adding that the soldiers died on the spot. But a local journalist said the soldiers were killed by a homemade bomb placed under the outpost, and troops immediately conducted a sweep of the area to find the rebels.
Imbar also said that in the Tiro subdistrict of Pidie, unknown gunmen shot a policeman dead on Monday. The policeman was riding a motorcycle with his wife when he was shot. "He was in civilian clothes and was unarmed," Imbar said.
In North Aceh, one of some 20 rebels ambushing a military patrol in Singgah Mata village was killed in an ensuing exchange of fire, North Aceh district police Chief Superintendent Abadan Bangko said. The rebels attacked a convoy of five trucks carrying soldiers on patrol in the area, Bangko said.
But the deputy commander of the North Aceh GAM forces, Abu Sofyan Daud, denied the rebel, a member of an elite force, was killed during an ambush. "GAM did not launch an ambush, but our men inadvertently met with the patrol," Daud said.
The killings came just days ahead of Friday's talks between rebel and government representatives in Switzerland on a possible extension of a violence-marred three-month truce in Aceh which ended September 2. The truce, which reduced but did not halt the violence in the resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island, is now under a temporary extension.
Sympathy for the GAM, which has been fighting for an independent Islamic state since 1976, has grown as a result of a 10-year military campaign to crush the separatists.
Resentment is also high because of the syphoning off by the central government of the province's natural resources.
Jakarta has said it will not tolerate an independent Aceh, and has offered autonomy instead. The rebels say that despite entering the truce, they will not abandon their goal of independence.