Jakarta – Separatist rebels killed an army soldier and set a bridge on fire in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua, media reports said Sunday. Army Private Saiful was shot in the head Saturday when rebels of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) attacked security posts in Tigginambut of Puncak Jaya district, district police chief Chris Rihulay said.
It was the latest in a series of attacks by separatists in Papua province in recent days. On Tuesday, alleged separatist rebels killed two motorcycle taxi drivers in Puncak Jaya district, an area where rebels have been active, police said. In January, insurgents armed with sickles and arrows raided a police post and stabbed the wife of an officer before making off with four guns and ammunition. Police arrested one person for that attack. The OPM is a small group of separatist rebels that has 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
