Banda Aceh – Seven people, including two members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist group, were killed in separate violence on Thursday and Friday, activists and an official said.

Members of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) removed five male bodies all bearing gunshot wounds from two separate locations in Aceh Besar on Friday. Four of the five corpses were removed from a ravine near Sungai Peungapet along the Banda Aceh-Medan road, while another male body was found on the roadside in Neuheun village, about 15 kilometers southeast of Banda Aceh. Sources said the bodies in the ravine were of people who had been involved in a gunfight between the police and rebels in Lamtamot village on Wednesday.

On Thursday, two rebels were killed in separate exchanges of fire between GAM members and the police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob) officers, police spokesman for Aceh's Security and Order Operation Adj. Sr. Comr. Agus Dwiyanto said on Friday.

A suspected rebel named Rahmad, 22, was killed in a clash in Lamreh village of Masjid Raya district in Aceh Besar, some 40 kilometers southeast of Banda Aceh; while Muhammad Rizal, 28, was shot dead in a gunfight in Cot Leubeng village of Pandrah district in Bireun regency, some 175 kilometers east of BandaAceh.

GAM spokesman in Aceh Besar Ayah Sofyan and Bireun regency GAM commander Darwis Djeunieb both acknowledged that the men were GAM members. Meanwhile, GAM spokesman in East Aceh Ishak Daud said as quoted by local Serambi Indonesia daily on Friday that local legislator Ghazali Usman, 53, who had been held hostage by GAM for about a month, was critically ill. Ishak asked local government and members of the International Committee of the Red Cross to pick up the legislator and take him to the hospital