BANDA ACEH: An Indonesian court in war-torn Aceh province on Monday sentenced an adviser to the separatist rebel group of Free Aceh Movement to three years in jail.

Abdul Wahab bin Daud was found guilty of undermining the Indonesian government by joining the rebellion, whose aim is to set up an independent state in the region on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Judge Musa Arief presided over the trial at the Banda Aceh District Court. He said the defendant was assigned by the late rebel commander Abdullah Syafei as the adviser to the movement in Pidie District.

Syafei was killed along with five other insurgents by government troops in January last year during a raid by government troops on the headquarters of the Movement in the northern Aceh.

Arief said Wahab's task as an adviser was to deal with religious tax and settling disputes among the people over lands and other properties under Islamic laws.

Wahab was among more than 1,400 rebels who surrendered of were captured by the Indonesian security authorities after Jakarta launched a massive operation to crush the rebellion on May 19.

The military says it has killed more than 900 suspected guerrillas, while 46 soldiers and 17 policemen have died.

In the latest violence, villagers found the bodies of two unidentified civilians on Monday in the district of Aceh Tamiang district, near the province capital Banda Aceh, said local army spokesman Lt. Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki.

Representatives of the rebel force couldn't be reached for comment and it was impossible to independently verify the claims of Indonesia's military, which limits media access to rebel-held areas.

The Aceh rebels have been fighting since 1976 for an independent state in Aceh, an oil- and gas-rich region about 1,800 kilometers west of Jakarta.

About 12,000 people have died in the war, most of them civilians or civic leaders.