Freeport security guard killed

A security guard working for PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI), a subsidiary of U.S. copper and gold giant Freeport-McMoRan, was killed and five other people were injured on Sunday in a pair of attacks by suspected rebels in Papua province, police and company officials said.

Mindo Pangaribuan, spokesman for PTFI, said an Indonesian security guard was killed and five other staff wounded during an attack on their vehicle convoy on Sunday morning. ?At 10:45 a.m. [8:45 a.m. Jakarta time], two security vehicles came under gunfire and one employee was killed, five others injured,? the spokesman said in an e-mail to The Jakarta Globe.

Mindo said officers from the National Police?s Detachment 88 counterterrorism unit were deployed to the scene.

Police units responding to the gunfire were ambushed by suspected rebels near to the scene of the first shooting, said national police spokesman Sulistyo Ishak.

On Saturday, An Australian mining expert, Nicholas Grant (not American as reported earlier) working PTFI was shot and killed while traveling in a vehicle in the same area. Several other people in the car were unharmed, leading police to conclude the attack may have been the work of a rebel sniper.

No arrests have been made in connection with the shootings, police said.(*)