Five people, including two Indonesian soldiers and one separatist rebel, have been killed in the latest violence to hit Aceh, rebels and police said Tuesday.
Two young villagers were shot dead by Indonesian security forces conducting a sweep in the south of the restive province around noon on Tuesday, a spokesman for the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) said.
Tengku Amni bin Ahmad Marzuki, a GAM spokesman who sits on a joint government-rebel security committee, told AFP the pair were fleeing the arrival of truckloads of soldiers and police at their village of Ie Buboh.
Marzuki said two houses in the village were set on fire by soldiers frustrated by their failure to find a suspected rebel base in the area.
Two soldiers were killed and two others wounded when rebels ambushed their patrol in Alur Lebu in East Aceh on Monday, Aceh police spokesman Adjunct Senior Commissioner Sad Harunantyo said in a police report obtained by AFP.
Harunantyo told the Antara news agency earlier Tuesday that four soldiers had been wounded in the attack.
The police report said one rebel was shot dead in the shootout that followed the ambush.
Guerrillas had also attempted to attack a tanker belonging to the state oil and gas company Pertamina at the company's harbor in Lhokseumawe in North Aceh on Monday, Harunantyo told Antara.
But the grenade missed the target and the ship, which had been unloading fuel, was untouched, he said.
A civilian was in critical condition in Kuala, West Aceh, after gunmen shot him while he was riding a motorcycle, the police spokesman added. The attackers fled with the victim's motorcycle.
In Central Aceh, unidentified armed attackers set fire to six empty houses in Ronga-Ronga on Monday.
The GAM has been fighting for independence for the oil- and gas-rich province since mid-1976 -- BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP)
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