Correspondents say that the series of attacks have re-ignited years of separatist tension in the province.

Dislike of the security forces follows years of suppression

Five soldiers were taken hostage by a crowd on Wednesday in Blang Panjang village in Muara Dua district of North Aceh. Two escaped, but the whereabouts of the three was still unknown. "We do not think the three hostages have been killed as two of their colleagues who escaped were not harmed," North Aceh deputy police chief Major Amrin Remico said.

He added that 200 members from both the police mobile brigade unit and the army were sent to the region to hunt for the three men.

The hostage incident came a day after some 200 machete-wielding villagers stopped a bus and pulled 16 soldiers off in Lhok Nibong, eastern Aceh.

Several of the soldiers escaped by showing civilian identification papers but eight of their comrades were dragged away. Chief military spokesman Major General Syamsul Ma'arif has quoted witnesses who said the soldiers had been beaten and possibly had died, but the army has not been able to confirm this.

"We have only found one body which was in a very bad condition in the river yesterday [Wednesday] and one managed to flee. The fate of the other six are still unknown," the spokesman said. The army sent another 200 troop reinforcements to East Aceh to hunt the killers.

Separatists blamed

Armed forces chief General Wiranto: killings could affect moves to put security in hands of community

The armed forces were quick to place blame for the killings witht the Acehnese separatist movement. The separatists are campaigning to free the deeply Islamic province, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, from the control of the government in Jakarta.

A low-level separatist insurgency has simmered in Aceh for years. Correspondents say a nine-year army crackdown against the rebels involved widespread army atrocities, torture, rape and the dumping of victims in mass graves.

The military has acknowledged that 760 people died in fighting in the late 1980s, although human rights groups put the toll much higher. A team from Indonesia's official human rights commission dug at several suspected grave sites in August, unearthing the bones of scores of victims.

Following the resignation in May of President Suharto Indonesia's armed forces apologised for previous atrocities and said they were withdrawing all combat troops.