24 Jul 2009

Police officers injured in Freeport attack

10:56 am on 24 July 2009

Three police officers have been hurt in an ambush near a US-owned mine in Indonesia's Papua province, as police hold three suspects following a string of deadly attacks in the area.

The officers were wounded in an ambush on Wednesday on a convoy of buses belonging to US-company Freeport McMoRan heading to the giant Grasberg gold and copper mine, a police source who declined to be named told AFP.

The attack was on the sole road from the coast to the highland mine, where a series of similar ambushes killed three people earlier this month.

A Papua police spokesman confirmed the latest shooting but said he had no details on the number or identity of any casualties.

He said one policeman was also killed in a traffic accident on a separate stretch of the road that runs from the coast to the highland mine.

Earlier on Wednesday, Indonesia's state news agency Antara reported that two people had been killed in the attack but it did not identify the victims or say if they were shot.

National police spokesman Nanan Sukarna on Wednesday said a total of 15 people had been arrested, and eight were suspects in the earlier killings.