Security forces say they are hunting separatist rebels in Indonesia's restive Papua province after two police were killed in an attack.

National police spokesman Maj. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution says hundreds of troops have been deployed in the separatist stronghold of Puncak Jaya since the attack Saturday on paramilitary police.

Last month, two suspected rebels grabbed a gun from a police chief at an airport in Puncak Jaya and shot him dead.

Papua, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea, was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot. A small, poorly armed separatist group known as the Free Papua Movement has battled for independence since then.