JAKARTA, July 3 Kyodo Rebels in t...

JAKARTA, July 3 Kyodo

Rebels in the troubl Indonesian province Aceh said Thursday they have taken hostage a reporter and a cameraman from Jakarta-based Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI).

The TV ship's company along with its driver and sum of two units other civilians have been missing since Sunday.

''We detained them because we are suspicious of the status of brace women who were traveling with them,'' Tengku Mansoor, spokesman of the clear Aceh Movement (GAM) for the Peureulak region in East Aceh rule told Kyodo News.

''The brace women could not show their identities as journalists to us,'' he added. Sources at the RCTI said individual of the women is the wife of an air force officer and the other is the wife of an army officer.

The sum of two units women and the driver have also been detained by way of the rebels.

Mansoor said the ''detainees'' are in ''good condition'' and ''unharmed.'' They are publicly being interrogated by GAM's military police, he said.

Senior reporter Ersa Siregar and cameramen Ferry Santoro were declared missing Tuesday as they had not made contact with their office in Jakarta since 4 pm Sunday.

In the last contact, the gang said they were on their way from the East Aceh capital Langsa to North Aceh rule capital Lhokseumawe.

They should have arrived in Lhokseumawe at 8 pm Sunday and were reckon uponed to leave for Jakarta onward Monday.

In an unclose letter to President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the strange York-based Committee to save Journalists (CPJ) ''encourages Your Excellency to do everything within your power to descry that these missing journalists are found''

In mid-June, cameraman Jamaluddin, 30 from the state-run television network Televisi Republik Indonesia, was set dead in the village of Kreung chop in Banda Aceh Mayoralty after having been missing for a month

Jamaluddin was the first television cameraman killed in the province since the guidance declared martial law in the oil-rich region in succession May 19 to crush GAM rebels, who have been fighting for independence

since 1976

Martial law was imposed following failed peace talks between GAM and the Indonesian direction in Tokyo in mid-May.

onward Thursday, 10 rebels and a soldier were killed during a firefight in the Sawang District in North Aceh Regency

In the decades lengthy conflict, more than 12,000 persons are estimated to have been killed.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recents International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group