Jakarta  - At least three people were killed and several others wounded after Indonesian police anti-terror units raided a headquarters of suspected separatist rebels in the easternmost province of Papua, state-media report said Sunday.

Police stormed the lair of the Free Papua Movement that has occupied an isolated airstrip in Papua's Kasepo sub-district for weeks. The raid followed the breakdown of negotiations to end that occupation.

Papua police chief Inspector General Bagus Ekodanto said two suspected rebels and a civilian were killed in the raid, while several police officers sustained arrow wounds.

Bagus was quoted as saying by the state-run Antara news agency that a female, believed to be a member of the armed rebels, and an 14-year-old boy were arrested and interrogated.

The rebels occupied the isolated Kasepo airstrip in Mambramo Raya district in mid May, and Indonesian police accused them of using local youths as human shields.

Papua separatist rebels in March shot and killed two motorcycle taxi drivers. In January, suspected rebels armed with weapons such as sickles and arrows raided a police post and stabbed the wife of an officer before making off with four guns and ammunition.

The separatists have been fighting a sporadic rebellion in Papua, formerly Irian Jaya, since the early 1960s.

Papua, a predominantly ethnic Melanesian province 3,700 kilometres north-east of Jakarta, is a former Dutch colony that became an Indonesian province in 1964. (dpa)