Five people were killed and six injured in the latest violence to hit the restive Indonesian province of Aceh, police and residents said Friday.
Three members of an armed group thought to be guerrillas from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were killed in a fire fight with police and troops on patrol in the Darul Makmur district of West Aceh on Thursday.
In addition three civilians, also thought to be GAM members, one army private and one woman passerby were seriously wounded, police sources in Meulaboh, the West Aceh capital said.
In the district of North Aceh on Friday residents found a headless corpse bearing torture marks in Peureupoek village, one witness said.
North Aceh police chief Superintendent Abadan Bangko confirmed the grisly discovery, adding that no one had come up to identify the corpse.
And in a separate incident in the Seunagan district of West Aceh, three policemen and one civilian were wounded by gunfire.
Meanwhile the fith victim, Maryan -- a woman of 30 -- was killed on Wednesday night in Dayah Tanoh Teupinraya village, in the Glumpangtiga sub-district of Pidie.
According to Pidie police chief, Assistant Superintendant Heru Budi Ersanto, "the perpetrators came to the victim's house and just shot her."
The government and the GAM signed a three-month truce in May, which was extended for another three months in September, but it has so far failed to curb the violence.
The GAM has been fighting for independence from Indonesia for the past 20 years in the staunchly Muslim province.
Separatism in oil and gas-rich Aceh -- a staunchly Muslim province of some 4.6 million people -- has been fuelled by Jakarta's failure to ensure the province benefits from its natural wealth and by years of harsh military repression aimed at wiping out rebellion.
Jakarta, still smarting over the loss of East Timor in a UN-supervised ballot last year, has ruled out independence for Aceh but has promised broad autonomy instead -- BANDA ACEH (AFP)
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