Banda Aceh – At least five people were killed in Indonesia's Aceh province which has been wracked by separatism, the military and activists said on Sunday.

Troops shot dead a suspected rebel during a clash in the Lhoknga district some 12 kilometres south of here on Saturday, Aceh military spokesman Major Edi Sulistiadie said. He said a unit of 10 soldiers raided a house where suspected members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were assembling home-made bombs. One rebel was killed and the rest fled to a nearby forest. Troops found bomb-making materials in the house, Sulistiadie said.

However, the local GAM spokesman, Ayah Sofyan denied an exchange of fire had taken place there. "Because they found no GAM members, TNI [Indonesian armed forces] troops conducted a sweep of the area, shot two civilians and took them away in a truck," Sofyan told AFP by telephone, adding the fate of the two remained unknown.

Sulistiadie said soldiers shot dead another suspected GAM member in a raid on a house in West Aceh late on Friday. Four suspected rebels escaped, he added. The body of a man with gunshot wounds was found on Saturday in a forest, said a Red Cross volunteer who recovered the body.

Another body with a bullet in the head was found in South Aceh on Saturday, the local Red Cross office said. Residents said the victim had been kidnapped by a group of unidentified men some four hours before his body was found.

In North Aceh, soldiers shot dead a suspected GAM member on Saturday, the local military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Firdaus, said. He said the man was killed during an exchange of fire that erupted after a military patrol encountered armed rebels in the area.

The Central Aceh GAM spokesman Wien Rimeu Raya claimed that seven soldiers were killed and four injured when guerrillas attacked troops in Ronga-Ronga area on Saturday. But Firdaus denied there was any military casualty or any clash in Ronga-Ronga on Saturday.