Banda Aceh – Seven separatist rebels and three soldiers have been killed in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province, the military said Thursday.

Six members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and two soldiers were killed on Thursday in a gunfight following a military raid on the rebels at Blang Baroh in Aceh Besar district, Aceh military spokesman Major Zaenal Muttaqin told AFP. One soldier later died of bullet wounds.

Two of the troops killed in the two-hour skirmish were from the elite special force Kopassus while the other was a member of the strategic reserve command Kostrad, Muttaqin said. Troops seized an M-16 rifle, two Colt pistols and more than 100 rounds of ammunition from the rebels. "More troops have been sent to the area to hunt down GAM members who fled," said Muttaqin.

In another incident a suspected GAM rebel was shot dead in a raid on a suspected rebel hideout in North Aceh on Wednesday, the spokesman said.

An estimated 10,000 people have died since December 1976 when the Free Aceh Movement began its fight for an independent Islamic state. Some 300 have been killed this year alone in the energy-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island. GAM and the government have held a series of peace talks in Switzerland but ceasefires have always broken down.