While world attention is focused on the postwar chaos in Iraq, Indonesia has launched an invasion of resource-rich Aceh, in the country's biggest military assault since the 1975 invasion of East Timor. .
Located on the tip of northern Sumatra, Aceh has a population of four million and is located at the western edge of the Indonesian archipelago, about 1,200 miles northwest of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on the island of Java. .
In May this year, President Megawati Sukarnoputri put Aceh province under martial law and ordered over 40,000 soldiers and paramilitary police officers to put down the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which comprises approximately 5,000 guerrillas who have been waging a war for independence in the dense, mountainous forests for the past 30 years. .
Indonesia's military chief, General Endriatono Sutarto, has ordered his soldiers to hunt down the rebels and "destroy them to their roots." .
The problem with uprooting the guerrillas is that they enjoy the support of the vast majority of the Achenese. .
While the Achenese are mostly devout Muslims, this is not a war about religion, but about politics and economics. .
According to a recent report from the Rand Corporation, a U.S. Air Force think tank, "the perception is widespread that the Acehnese have not benefited from the province's enormous natural wealth and that industrial development projects have been introduced merely to provide employment opportunities to outsiders, especially from Java." .
"Given Indonesia's past abuses in Aceh," says Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, "there is tremendous potential for civilians to be targeted in the violence." .
The United Nations Children's Fund -- UNICEF -- warned of an impending crisis for the civilian population with the collapse of already weak health services. .
In the first five days of the invasion, the United Nations reported the burning of more than 200 schools.
