Six people killed in

Six people killed in fresh Aceh violence

Ibnu Mat Noor The Jakarta Post Jakarta

At least six people were killed in restive Aceh province on Friday, officials and humanitarian activists said on Saturday.

In Pidie regency, four male bodies with gunshot wounds were found at the side of the road in Meureudu village, about 160 kilometers east of Banda Aceh.

Pidie Military District chief Lt. Col. Supartodi said that the four bodies were members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist rebels who were killed in a military raid on a rebel base about one kilometer away from the village.

GAM spokesman in Pidie, Abu Razak, however, quickly denied the claim. "They were not GAM members, they were merely civilians," the rebel said.

In West Aceh another rebel was killed on Friday in a fierce gunfight with the military in Meunasah Rayeuk Lamno village, some 100 kilometers south of Banda Aceh, said Indonesian Military (TNI) spokesman Maj. Zaenal Mutaqin.

An unidentified male body with gunshot wounds was also discovered in Samalanga village in Bireun regency, some 200 kilometers east of Banda Aceh, on Friday. The body was taken to Dr. Fauziah Bireuen general hospital, chief of Samalanga community health service Dr. Muchtar said.

In the first month of 2002, at least 28 people have been killed in various incidents in Aceh. Among those killed this week was a policeman who died in an armed skirmish near a telecommunications shop in Langsa, East Aceh, on Thursday night.

GAM has been waging a guerrilla war in an attempt to forge an independent Islamic state, separate from Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.

Central government awarded special autonomy status last year to Aceh, which included a larger share of the province's natural resources, gas and oil. President Megawati Soekarnoputri visited Aceh last September.

A strong nationalist and daughter of founding father Sukarno, Megawati has flatly rejected the rebels' secessionist demands.