Abducted Army member found dead in ditch

Abducted Army member found dead in ditch

JAKARTA (JP): An Army member who was abducted by a group of
unidentified gunmen on Friday was found dead the following day in
Aceh, bringing the number of slain servicemen in the troubled
province since May to 30.

North Aceh Military commander Lt. Col. Giyono told Antara the
mutilated body of Second Sgt. Muhammad Sufy, was found near a gas
station in Geurugok subdistrict.

Sufy was a member of the Makmur district military command.
Locals discovered the body, which was difficult to identify due
to wounds, in a ditch a few meters from the highway connecting
the Aceh capital of Banda Aceh to Medan in North Sumatra.

The 45-year-old was abducted on his way home from work just
after dusk on Friday, his family said.

Doctors at the local military hospital in the North Aceh
capital of Lhokseumawe estimated that Sufy had been dead 10 hours
before his body was discovered.

Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Wiranto told the House of
Representatives on Friday that 29 military soldiers and police
were killed between May and July 1 while on duty in Aceh. The
armed separatist rebel group was blamed for the murders.

Since May, violence has claimed more than 100 lives, including
41 people killed in a clash with troops in Krueng Geukueh
subdistrict, near Lhokseumawe on May 3.

North Aceh is one of three Aceh regencies most affected by
violence, which remains unabated after 10 years of anti-rebel
military operations were lifted in August last year.

A group of armed civilians also set fire to a bus in Blang
Tambue, some 60 kilometers west of Lhokseumawe, on its way to
Banda Aceh from Medan on Friday. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

It was the fifth bus burned by armed groups in the past month.

Bus driver Ruslan told Antara a group of men who carried
Russian-made AK-47s and American-made M-16 rifles stopped the bus
with the number plate BL 7391 A and asked all passengers to get
out before setting it ablaze.

Some residents said they watched the ambush from a distance,
but could do nothing to stop it for safety reasons.

"We could only watch the fire gutting the bus, and we dared to
approach the passengers after the armed people left," a resident
who requested anonymity said.

In response to the ongoing violence affecting public
transportation in Aceh, chairman of the provincial Land
Transportation Owners Organization (Organda), Kamaruddin THB,
demanded security authorities to step up protection measures for
buses plying Banda Aceh to Medan.

"In the absence of strict measures by the security
authorities, public transportation companies will think twice
before they operate their fleet there," he said.

In Medan, nongovernmental organizations which help hundreds of
refugees fleeing Aceh have started a fund-raising program for the
Acehnese. An activist, Ikrimah Hamidy, said on Sunday over Rp 10
million had been collected at Friday's prayer in some mosques.

Ikrimah said the money had been used to buy medicine, soaps,
toothpaste and detergent for refugees, who are currently taking
shelter at mosques and school buildings.

Aceh Governor Syamsuddin Mahmud has called on residents in the
volatile regencies of North Aceh, Pidie and East Aceh to stay put
and asked refugees to return home despite the continuing
violence.(39/amd)