Jakarta – Just days after Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid vowed to prevent the secession of the country's easternmost province, media reports said Wednesday that rebels in Irian Jaya had captured two members of the security forces.

The state Antara news agency said about 20 guerrillas belonging to the Free Papua Movement mounted a raid on Tor Atas district, near the provincial capital of Jayapura. They apprehended two police sergeants guarding the local church, the agency said. A police spokesman in Jayapura said the security forces were searching for the missing men.

Insurgents in the region on the western half of New Guinea island, 4,000 kilometers west of Jakarta, have been battling for independence since Indonesia occupied the former Dutch colony in 1963.