Rebel governor's wife arrested

Rebel governor's wife arrested

BANDA ACEH: The wife of a senior rebel commander was among
four guerrillas arrested on Monday during a raid on a rebel
hideout at Manggeng in Southwest Aceh district, military
spokesman Lt. Col. Asep Sapari said.

The woman named Yusna Rahaini is the wife of the local Free
Aceh Movement (GAM) commander, Abdul Rahman, Sapari said.

He also said that four separate clashes between troops and
rebels erupted in Aceh but no one was killed.

Meanwhile, police in the neighbouring North Sumatra province
had arrested seven men who had been selling automatic weapons to
GAM rebels, said Brigadier General Sunarko Danu Ardanto, a
national police spokesman.

He said the seven had in the past purchased the weapons --
mostly Kalashnikov rifles -- from distributors in Thailand.
Police are still hunting for 11 other accomplices of the seven,
Ardanto said.

The government last May imposed martial law in Aceh and
launched a huge operation to crush GAM rebels, who have been
fighting for an independent state on the tip of Sumatra island
since 1976.

More than 1,300 guerrillas have been killed and 2,000 others
have been arrested or have surrendered since then, the military
says. -- AFP