Rebel turned politician killed in Indonesia's Aceh province

Indonesia MapJakarta - A politician and former separatist rebel was shot dead in Indonesia's Aceh province in the latest attack targeting former separatists, an official said Friday.

Taufik, who headed a district branch of the Aceh Party, was gunned down at his home Thursday, said Ibrahim Syamsuddin, a spokesman for the Aceh Transition Committee, an advocacy group for former separatist fighters in Aceh.

Taufik, whose wife is running in a regional election, was the third former rebel to have been killed in the past two weeks, Syamsuddin said.

"The situation is tense," he said, declining to speculate on who was behind the killings. "Unless law enforcers take swift action, this kind of terror will continue."

Offices of the Aceh Party, which consists of former rebels of the Free Aceh Movement, have been the targets of several grenade attacks since last year.

None of the cases has been solved, Syamsuddin said.

Indonesia is to hold parliamentary elections in April, and the Aceh Party is seeking to win seats in the provincial legislature.

The Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement, which fought for independence for Aceh, signed a peace agreement in August 2005, ending decades of conflict that claimed more than 15,000 lives, mostly civilians.

The peace pact followed the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 170,000 people in Aceh alone. (dpa)

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