Two armed civilians shot dead in Aceh

Two armed civilians shot dead in Aceh

JAKARTA (JP): Two alleged rebels were shot dead by security
personnel conducting a routine operation near the northern Aceh
town of Lhokseumawe on Monday night.

The alleged rebels, identified as Zulkifli, 25, and Saiful,
31, were residents of Tanah Luas district in North Aceh regency.
The two men were wanted by police for their alleged involvement
in a number of armed assaults over the past few months, Antara
news agency reported.

Operation spokesman Lt. Col. Sutrisno said both men were
alleged members of an armed group of rebels who had been
terrorizing the Lhokseumawe area.

"The two tried to escape on a GL-Pro motorcycle during the
routine raid, forcing security personnel to fire warning shots.

"The incident took place in the North Aceh administration's
housing complex in Hagu Teungoh village, about half a kilometer
from the town of Lhokseumawe.

"After warning shot were fired, we were involved in an
exchange of gunfire for a few minutes. The two died in the
exchange," Sutrisno said.

No security officers were injured in the incident.

Security personnel seized an FN 46 rifle, the motorcycle and
identity cards and local identification cards from the suspected
rebels as evidence.

"After we double-checked the case we saw that the two were on
the police's wanted list for quite some time," he said.

Security personnel have staged routine raids in the area
around Lhokseumawe in response to the fatal shootings of a number
of police officers by groups of unidentified assailants over the
past few months.

Last week police arrested six members of the armed wing of the
Free Aceh Movement for the murder of two officers, first class
Sgt. Arinda Jayaputra and first class Sgt. Simon Lazarus
Hasibuan. The two were killed in Tiro subdistrict, North Aceh
regency, in an early morning attack on Oct. 12.

Two police officers, Corp. first class Iskandar Abbas and
second Lt. Mairan, were killed on Oct. 11 in an ambush near Keuda
Karieng village after attending a meeting at the North Aceh
Police Headquarters. A day earlier, second class Sgt. Prayitno
was gunned down by unidentified assailants as he was escorting
his wife to Blang Biduk elementary school in North Aceh regency,
where she is a teacher.

Violence in Aceh over the past 10 years has claimed thousands
of lives. Much of the violence has been blamed on military
personnel stationed in the province during the decade-long
military operation aimed at fighting separatist rebels there.

According to the latest government data, 1,021 people were
killed, 864 went missing, 1,376 were widowed and thousands of
houses were burned down in Aceh over the past 10 years. The
military operation in the province was ended in August last year.

Possible solutions to the problems in Aceh are currently being
discussed by legislatures in the People's Consultative Assembly.

The country's highest law-making body failed to agree on a
special decree on the troubled province due to time constraints,
but agreed to include measures to resolve the problems in Aceh in
the 1999/2004 State Policy Guidelines.(edt/imn)