A mob in Indonesia's rebellious province of Aceh attacked military posts yesterday in a second day of violence in which eight soldiers have already been killed.
A military official said about 1,000 people set fire to a police station and attacked a military post near the industrial town of Lhokseumawe on the northern tip of Sumatra island, about 1,600 km north-west of Jakarta.
Security forces fired warning shots at the mob.
The regional military spokesman, Lieut Col Nurdin Sulistyo, said there were no reports of casualties in the attack, the latest against the military in the resource-rich province which has a long history of separatist movements.
On Tuesday 200 machete-wielding villagers stopped a public bus with 16 off-duty soldiers on board in the village of Lhok Nibung in east Aceh, torturing and killing eight of them.
The military has detained 25 people, saying they appeared to be members of a pro-independence group.
The Aceh-based Serambi newspaper said the wives and children of two of the soldiers had been aboard the bus and were abducted by the mob. Their fate was unknown.
The military said 100 troops had been sent to the area on Tuesday evening to keep order and search for the bodies of the eight soldiers. A further 200 troops were due yesterday from the North Sumatran capital, Medan.
A local journalist said residents discovered five unidentified bodies hanging from trees near where the attack occurred, but a military spokesman denied the report. "Our troops are still searching for the bodies and we have not received any reports of this," he said.
Local newspapers said rumours that so-called "ninja killers" were in the area had spread fear among the population in recent days, heightening tension.
Talk of ninja killers has caused hysteria in parts of Indonesia in recent months after mysterious black-clad assassins killed more than 180 people in a murder spree in Java.
Locals said unidentified armed men had been in the area recently urging residents to join attacks against the military.
They said the situation had been especially tense in the north and east of the province, with mobs last week setting fire to Muslim schools and the homes of Islamic clerics in what appeared to be intra-religious clashes.
Aceh is one of Indonesia's most fiercely Islamic regions and has long battled against outside control, first against the Dutch colonial rulers and in recent years against Jakarta.
Locals and human rights officials say a nine-year army crackdown against the rebels involved widespread army atrocities including torture, rape and summary executions.
Indonesia's military apologised this year for past atrocities and said they were withdrawing all combat troops.
Indonesia also faces separatist insurgencies in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor and the remote eastern province of Irian Jaya. Talks are under way with Portugal to settle the dispute over East Timor by offering it substantial autonomy.
Separatist protests in Indonesia have gained momentum since the downfall of former president Suharto in May after 32 years of iron rule during which any attempts to break away from Jakarta were swiftly and brutally crushed.