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)