Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta – Indonesia's rebellious province of Aceh began returning to normal on Friday, the last day of a strike called by separatist rebels to draw attention to the decades-long conflict, residents said.

The strike started on Wednesday in the staunchly Muslim province on the northern tip of Sumatra and closed most shops and schools, as well as disrupted transport.

But Aceh's major industries, including gas fields owned by a unit of Exxon Mobil Corp, worked normally throughout the stoppage and there was no upsurge of violence. "Our plants still operated [during the strike]," said a company official from Exxon Mobil Indonesia who declined to be identified.

Weekly Islamic prayers passed off without trouble all across this province of four million and public transport had started up again in many places, residents said.

"It's getting normal today. We have buses running, children going to school and some shops opening up," Ermansyah, who works at the religious office in the East Aceh town of Langsa, told Reuters.

"I think the residents just wanted to see conditions on the first day and it was indeed tense then. But after one person dared to go out, others just followed," he said.

Rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) called the strike for January 16-18 but said workers in key public facilities such as hospitals did not have to join the stoppage.

In the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, the doors of many shops remained bolted but the official Antara news agency said several storekeepers were still managing to sell to customers.

"If we do not trade how can we get the fortune to make the kitchen smoke. Our life is hard enough," Antara quoted a trader as saying.

Police called the strike intimidation by GAM and earlier this month Jakarta stepped up pressure on the rebels, saying it planned to revive a military command in the resource-rich province, where the conflict claims lives almost daily.

Some 1,500 people were killed in clashes between rebels and Indonesian security forces in 2001 alone.

Several peace deals have been brokered in the past 18 months including ceasefires, but they have largely been ignored by both sides.

GAM has said it wants nothing less than full independence but Jakarta has ruled this out, as it battles several flash points across the vast archipelago sparked by issues ranging from separatism to communal and religious differences.