An Indonesian Military officer stationed in Papua was stabbed to death by unknown attackers on Tuesday.
Capt. Tasman, 53, from the Cenderawasih XVII Military Regional Command, was on his way to work when the attack took place near a housing complex on Jalan Baru in Heram, Jayapura.
A Cenderawasih University student who witnessed the incident told Suara Pembaruan that he was riding a motorbike behind Tasman when two men approached him.
One man used a knife to stab him repeatedly and the other one used a sword. Tasman fell to the ground and the men ran away.
Kiki reported the attack to a nearby police precinct but Tasman was already dead when police arrived at the scene.
He had been stabbed or slashed in the neck, back and stomach.
Neither the police nor the military in Papua were willing to comment regarding the latest attack in the region.
On Aug. 3, suspected Papua separatists attacked an Army helicopter in Jayawijaya district as it evacuated the body of a soldier they had allegedly killed, police said.
A few days before, the town of Mulia was rocked by two separate shootings that targeted police and military offices, wounding one soldier. On July 29, police said 16 rebel fighters engaged in a fire-fight with police in Paniai district. In the same month, two other shooting incidents left four soldiers dead.
(West Papua Media Note: this type of brazen attack bears strong similarities in its conduct to the stabbing of journalist Banjir Ambarita in early 2011, elements of the August 1 attack at Nafri, the delivery of a bomb on June 28 to the KumHAM office in Kotaraja, and many years of so-called "ninja" attacks from motorbikes that Papuan civilians have suffered for years. It is absolutely critical for the TNI to be fully transparent with this investigation, and not blame Papuans immediately without CREDIBLE for an attack that bears all the hallmarks of Indonesian Islamist violence (especially in the use of the sword), or factional violence between members of the security forces involved in illegal business activities) .