Indonesian security forces have killed three suspected separatist rebels during an operation that followed the fatal shooting of a government soldier, the military says.
Soldiers shot dead the rebels at a health clinic in Intan Jaya district where one of them was being treated for gunshot wounds on Monday, provincial military spokesman Colonel Gusti Nyoman Suriastawa said.
“The three tried to escape, attack security personnel, and grab their weapons,” Suriastawa said in a statement.
“Our personnel were forced to neutralise them,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, rebels opened fire on an army outpost in the area, fatally wounding a 22-year-old soldier.
Papua has been the scene of a low-level separatist insurgency since the 1960s, but deadly clashes between rebels and government security forces have intensified in the past several years.