Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – The bodies of six people, including a boy, have been found in Aceh, taking the death toll from a military offensive launched on April 11 to almost 200. Police said the bodies of five of the latest victims were bullet-riddled while a sixth bore torture marks.

Violence has been escalating in the oil- and gas-rich province at the tip of Sumatra since Jakarta approved what it called a "limited" offensive to protect vital installations such the giant American-owned Exxon Mobil gas fields. The fields were closed in March over security concerns, costing Jakarta millions of dollars a day in lost revenue and threatening long-term international supply contracts.

The Aceh-Sumatra Liberation Front claimed in a statement made available in Jakarta yesterday that the offensive is going from bad to worse. "Since this military operation, the escalation of atrocities committed by the Indonesian armed forces and police has been very high and the number of Acehnese people who have fallen victim has significantly increased," the front said.

Of the dead, 10 were children, nine women, 143 men and seven fighters with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the front said, noting that 300 people had been wounded, eight of them children.

The front said that of the 271 people who had disappeared, only 17 were believed to be under arrest. "The majority of those who were arrested and disappeared may be [GAM] sympathisers since the vast majority of Acehnese people fall into this category," it said.

A group of Acehnese leaders this week met President Abdurrahman Wahid in Jakarta to appeal to him to order a halt to military and police attacks. Mr Wahid argued against the offensive in Cabinet meetings but approved the offensive under pressure from key ministers, including Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

More than 650 people have been killed in Aceh this year following a year of inconclusive talks in Geneva and shaky ceasefires between the Indonesian forces and GAM.