Indonesian violence claims 15 lives

Fresh fighting in Indonesia's Aceh province has left at least 15 dead.

Police say officers shot three rebels dead on the outskirts of the provincial capital Banda Aceh while a civilian was killed by crossfire in a separate gunfight nearby.

Violence also claimed lives in outlying parts of the province. The bodies of four villagers apparently shot dead were found in southern Aceh, while seven civilians were killed in eastern Aceh.

Human rights activists claim the victims were executed by Indonesian security forces after being arrested and taken away. Local police claim, however, that rebels were responsible.

Indonesia's government has sent troops to Aceh to protect US-based Exxon-Mobil's natural gas fields after the oil company suspended operations last week due to security threats.

Insurgents from the Free Aceh Movement have been battling for an independent homeland in the oil- and gas-rich region for 25 years.

The war and brutal reprisals by the military have claimed at least 6,000 lives in the past decade, most of them civilians.

Separately, in Central Kalimantan province on Borneo island, indigenous Dayak gangs have killed eight migrants found hiding in the jungle weeks, adding to a death toll of more than 450 people slaughtered in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Qomaruddin Sukhemi said one of the victim's body, which had been decapitated, had been brought to the local hospital in the town of Sampit. The others were still in the forests.

More than 70,000 migrants, mostly from the island of Madura, have been forced to flee the region since the killings started on February 18. Nearly all the migrants' houses were destroyed, and the Dayaks have vowed to kill any Madurese who try to return.