Banda Aceh – At least 12 people, including a soldier, were killed in the latest outbreak of violence in restive Aceh province from Wednesday to Thursday, official and humanitarian activists said.
Seven male bodies bearing gunshot wounds were found lying on roadsides to the east of Sigli town, some 120 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Thursday morning, the coordinator for Coalition-Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) on Human Rights in Sigli, Muharizal Hasan, said.
Six of the bodies were found in Unoe village, Glumpang Tiga district, while another body was found in neighboring Tanjung Usi village, Mutiara district, some seven kilometers away from Unoe village.
Muharizal quoted Unoe villagers as saying that gunshots were heard at around 5 a.m. on Thursday from a house that was known to be a hideout for Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist rebels. The residents said that dozens of police and soldiers raided the house, and that they found the six bodies at dawn.
Pidie Military District chief Maj. Taufik Rusnandar told the media in Sigli on Thursday that a joint military and police force had launched a raid on a rebel base in Unoe village, Glumpang Tiga district, and that an armed skirmish was unavoidable. The officer said that a soldier was wounded in the raid and that several weapons, including an AK-47, were seized from the rebels.
In East Aceh, a military unit was involved in a gun battle with alleged GAM rebels in Alue Siwah village, Nurussalam district, some 350 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Wednesday night.
"Four GAM rebels were shot dead in the incident and two rifles, an M-16 and a Simpson, were seized from the assailants," Army spokesman Maj. Zaenal Mutaqin said in Lhokseumawe on Thursday.
Earlier on Wednesday morning, a soldier, Pvt. Wiyoto, 31, was shot and killed after a rebel ambush in Simpang Dua village, Kuta Makmur, North Aceh. Another soldier, Pvt. M. Ali Sabana, and acivilian, Sutrisno, sustained gunshot wounds during the attack.
A GAM spokesman in North Aceh, Tengku Jamaika, claimed responsibility for the attack, but claimed that none of the rebels had been injured.u