Separatist rebels in Indonesia's remote Irian Jaya province killed five policemen on Wednesday in a pre-dawn attack on their post, police said.
Police were sending reinforcements and a tugboat to collect the bodies of the officers killed in the jungled Wasior area in the district of Manokwari, district police chief Ajdunt Commissioner Bambang Budisantoso said.
"We expect the bodies to arrive here after midnight. Communication with the area in very difficult," he told AFP, adding that the police had requested the help of the state-owned domestic airliner Merpati for transportation.
Wasior is more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) inland from the coastal city of Manokwari.
Reinforcements to hunt down the rebels were also being sought from police in the neighboring districts of Biak and Sorong, the police chief said.
An independence movement has simmered in Irian Jaya, a former Dutch colony, since the Dutch departed in 1961 -- JAKARTA (AFP)
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