GAM suspects killed in fresh attack
Associated Press, Banda Aceh, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam
The Indonesia military (TNI) shot and killed seven men it identified as separatist rebels during an ambush in the eastern part of the war-torn province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, an army spokesman said on Sunday.
More than 900 suspected members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) have been killed since the government abandoned a five- month truce in May and launched a large-scale military offensive there.
Military personnel in the east of the province recovered six bodies on Saturday from the scene of a battle a day earlier, said spokesman for the Aceh military operation Lt. Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki.
Also in East Aceh, a rebel died in a gunfight on Saturday. Soldiers confiscated an AK-47 assault rifle from the victim, he said.
Despite the greater number of GAM members captured, the military thus far has confiscated only 363 weapons from the rebels, fueling speculation that government troops have been targeting civilians in their purge against members of the separatist movement.
Thus far, the so named "integrated operation" in Aceh has taken its toll in the death of 304 civilians and 140 others injured.
On the offensive side, the military has also lost 35 soldiers and six police personnel, with hundreds other injured.
Earlier, in an assessment of the four-month-old military operation, TNI chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto claimed that government troops deployed in the strife-torn province had significantly sapped the strength of GAM.
Endriartono said after four months of an incessant military offensive, GAM members had been pushed to remote forested areas, preventing them from causing security disturbances to civilians, including the collection of the so-called Nanggroe taxes from local people.
He declined to speculate on the current number of GAM rebels.
The military chief merely said that their number might have been reduced or increased.
The military has been accused of exaggerating its successes and committing rights abuses in Aceh, where more than 35,000 troops are fighting around 5,000 rebels equipped with over 2,000 weapons.
Jakarta restricted the movement of journalists in the province in July after local and international journalists documented several alleged instances of arbitrary execution by troops.
The military initially said it would need six months to crush the rebellion, but has recently begun talking about a longer war.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri issued a decree in mid-May imposing martial law for six months in Aceh to allow government troops to annihilate the GAM secessionist movement.
Jakarta has many times launched military operations to quell GAM which officially began its fight for the independence of Aceh in 1976. More than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have lost their lives thus far.
Successive brutal campaigns by Indonesia's military have only succeeded in fanning the insurgency, and most analysts say the current offensive is unlikely to be any different.