Clash between Indonesian army and insurgents leaves 14 dead in Papua region

Jakarta: Indonesia’s military said Thursday it reclaimed a village in the restive Papua region following a battle with bullets and arrows that it said left 14 separatist insurgents dead. Insurgents disputed the account, saying that only three of the dead were combatants and that troops killed nine villagers.

The battle erupted Wednesday morning when dozens of rebels armed with military-grade weaponsand bows and arrows

attacked troops as they prepared to assault a rebel post in Soanggama village in Intan Jaya district of Central Papua province, military spokesman Lt. Col. Iwan Dwi Prihartono said.

The soldiers routed the rebels following a six-and-a-half-hour battle and

recaptured the village, which had been a hotbed of the insurgency, Prihartono said in a statement.

Rebels in Papua have been fighting a low-level insurgency since the early 1960s, when Indonesia

annexed the region, a former Dutch colony.

Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, after a UN-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham.

Prihartono said the bodies of 14 insurgents were recovered after the battle, and that there were no casualties on the government side. The soldiers also seized a homemade rifle, four air rifles, rounds of ammunition, a scope, binoculars, communication equipment, documents and a “morning star” flag — a separatist symbol.