Six people were killed or found dead in Indonesia's Aceh province in violence ahead of peace talks in Switzerland between Acehnese separatist rebels and the government, police and residents said Saturday.
Police brigadier Zulbahri was killed in an attack by suspected Free Aceh Movement (GAM) guerrillas on a police convoy in the Singgersing area of South Aceh on Thursday, police adjutant commissioner Agus Mandarwanto said.
Local GAM commander Abrar Muda said his group was responsible for the attack.
The chief of Sungai Pauh village in North Aceh, Abdul Rani Jamil, was shot dead by unidentified assailants on Thursday night, police said.
On Friday, two gunmen killed a retired civil servant, Muchtar Syamaun, in the city of Lhokseumawe in North Aceh when he was on his was to the mosque, local police chief Adjutant Commissioner Wanto Sumardi said.
In North Aceh's Krueng Geukueh area an unidentified man was found dead with severe torture wounds on Friday, and in Pidie district the body of another man was found with gunshot wounds, Muharizal Hasan, chief of the NGO Coalition for Human Rights said.
On the same day a businessman was found dead with gunshot wounds in East Aceh, he said.
Fresh peace talks between the Indonesian government and the exiled leadership of GAM are due to begin in Switzerland on Monday at an undisclosed location behind closed doors.
Aceh's Forum for Human Rights said 960 people died in 2000 in violence linked to fighting between the rebels and government troops, despite a fragile truce that took effect in June.
Pressure for a vote on self-rule has intensified in Aceh, a staunchly Muslim province on the northern tip of Sumatra island, since East Timor broke away from Indonesia in 1999 after a UN-conducted ballot -- JAKARTA (AFP)
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