Eight more killed in Aceh

Eight more killed in Aceh

BANDA ACEH, Aceh: Seven suspected separatist rebels and a civilian have been killed in the restive Indonesian province of Aceh while 11 other guerrillas have been captured, the military said Wednesday.

Troops clashing with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Bireuen district on Tuesday killed six suspected guerrillas, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki said.

Two rebels were captured following the 30-minute firefight, he said.

Another group of soldiers clashed elsewhere in Bireuen later on Tuesday. A civilian was killed by a stray bullet and a suspected rebel arrested, Basuki said.

At Bakongan in South Aceh, another clash left one rebel killed.

"The dead victim was the local commander of the GAM and from him we confiscated one M-16 rifle and a number of GAM documents," Yani said.

Troops raiding a suspected rebel hideout at Beureuh in Pidie district on Tuesday wounded a rebel who refused to surrender, the spokesman said.

Two other suspected rebels were arrested during another raid at Raya Sanggeue in Pidie on Tuesday, he added.

A joint force of soldiers and paramilitary police attacked a group of 30 rebels conducting an ID check of people in East Aceh late on Tuesday and managed to arrest two guerrillas, Yani said.

Three others were captured separately by troops in West and North Aceh districts, he added.

In the provincial capital Banda Aceh police shot and wounded a man suspected of extortion in a market. A policeman who declined to be named said the man was shot in the knee and was in hospital.

Following that arrest, more than a dozen armed police raided the office of the Aceh chapter of the National Foster Parent Movement in Banda Aceh and took four women and two infants to the city police headquarters.

The policeman said the office was suspected to be harboring five accomplices of the man shot at the market. -- AFP