UNIDENTIFIED gunmen have killed an Indonesian soldier and badly injured another in the country's tsunami-hit western city of Banda Aceh, and opened fire on a group of lightly armed police cadets, in the latest indication that Aceh province may be sliding back towards civil war. The gunmen, presumed to be Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, first struck about 8pm on Saturday night, local time, less than 1km from the major concentration of international groups co-ordinating the delivery of aid to the region, including the offices of the UN and the International Organisation for Migration. The two soldiers were rushed to Banda Aceh's Teungku Fakinah hospital, where a South Australian medical team led by emergency doctor Hugh Grantham operated on a bullet wound to one man's leg. "In the case of the second soldier, who apparently suffered a gunshot injury to the head, there was nothing for us to do," Dr Grantham said. The injured man and his dead comrade's body were evacuated to Jakarta yesterday afternoon. Several hours after the first attack, about 2.30am yesterday, gunmen apparently fired simultaneously from three directions on a police post assigned to guard the house of provincial deputy police commissioner Subekti, which was badly damaged in the tsunami two weeks ago. The post, only 100m from the UN and IOM compounds and largely manned by cadets serving their compulsory three-month military service, was pock-marked with bullet holes and littered with empty shell casings. Only a handful of the police present had been carrying weapons but others, including cadets Agam and Ari, told how they had ducked for cover when the firing first began. "I was watching television," Agam said, "and I dived for the floor. I was frightened. Ari said he saw two gunmen there (to the east), two there (to the west) and one or two over there (directly across the road from him, towards the commissioner's house) before the firing began." The assailants are believed to have fled the scene on foot, in the direction of the aid offices.