Banda Aceh – Separatist rebels on Friday shot dead an Acehnese army trooper and wounded 13 others in a pre-dawn ambush on the village prayer house where they were resting in Indonesia's restive Aceh province, military sources said.

The sources said the attack on 30 army personnel in the village of Mukojurong, in Pidie district triggered a 15 minute firefight, in which the rebels used automtaic weapons and rocket launchers.

One of the soldiers, Sergent Syamsul Bachrie, was killed and 13 others injured, seven of them seriously, before the rebels disengaged, the sources said.

The injured were flown to hospitals in Lhokseumawe and in the North Sumatra city of Medan. There were no reports of rebel casualties.

Earlier Friday police said an Indonesian policeman had been shot dead and two people seriously wounded in renewed violence in the province.

Police sergent Ibrahim was shot at point-blank range by unknown men outside his home in the Sungai Pauh Langsa area of East Aceh on Thursday, police spokesman Chief Commissioner Kusbini Imbar said.

"I'm sure the attackers were GAM [Free Aceh Movement] members," Imbar said. GAM spokesman Ishak Duad denied the charges.

Meanwhile, a soldier was shot and wounded by unknown assailants when riding a motorcycle in the Bambi area of Pidie on Thursday, local military police chief Lieutenant Colonel Samsuar, told AFP.

In a separate incident, villagers on Friday found the tortured bodies of two unidenified under a bridge across the Lansar River in Beurandeh village, East Aceh, local journalists said. The bodies were taken to the local hospital.

More than 120 people have been killed this year in the armed conflict between government forces and GAM guerrillas, who have been fighting for a free Islamic state in the resource-rich province since the mid-1970s.

The killings have continued despite a month-long moratorium on violence in Aceh effective January 15, agreed between representatives of the government and the GAM in Switzerland earlier in the month. Last year's violence in the province claimed more than 1,000 lives.

Pressure for a vote on self-rule in Aceh has intensified since East Timor's breakaway from Indonesia after a UN-conducted ballot on self determination in 1999. Jakarta has ruled out independence for Aceh but pledged broad autonomy.