| 'Civilian was shot dead by troops who conducted a sweep in the area to hunt down the attackers, Manyak.' Ishak Daud, GAM spokesman
'Soldiers conducting a sweep in Mutiara area, shot dead three civilians, including a woman, on Saturday.' Abu Razak, GAM spokesman for the Pidie district |
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 he schoolteacher wife of a policeman in East Acheh was found dead on Saturday with her throat slashed, Deputy district police chief, Commissioner Muhammad Saidi said.
Saidi accused rebels from the separatist Free Acheh Movement (GAM) of the killing but the local GAM spokesman, Ishak Daud, denied the allegation.
"We do not hurt women, children and the elderly," Daud said.
A soldier and a rebel were killed and two soldiers injured during an ambush by rebels on a patrol in Peusangan, Bireun district on Saturday, a Military spokesman, Major Zaenal Muttaqin said.
The local GAM deputy commander, Cut Manyak, confirmed the ambush but said none of his men was killed.
He said a civilian was shot dead by troops who conducted a sweep in the area to hunt down the attackers, Manyak said.
He also said three civilians were wounded by gunshot during the sweep that followed the ambush.
Muttaqin said troops arrested a man suspected of being a rebel in North Acheh on Saturday.
Several bullets and two separatist flags were found in his house, Muttaqin added.
Meanwhile the GAM spokesman for the Pidie district, Abu Razak, claimed that soldiers conducting a sweep in Mutiara area, shot dead three civilians, including a woman, on Saturday.
Muttaqin said he had not received such a report from Pidie.
Villagers in Indrapuri, near the Acheh capital, Banda Acheh,on Saturday found the body of a man who had gunshot wounds, a humanitarian activist said.
The casualties brought the number of deaths in Acheh in the first 12 days of the year to 80.
An estimated 10,000 people have been killed since the start of the insurgency. More than 1,700 people, mostly civilians, died last year.
Separatist unrest in Acheh on the tip of Sumatra island has been fuelled by years of human rights abuses by the military and by the central government's draining of the region's rich oil and gas resources.
© 2002 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
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