A total of 2,252 soldiers left on board a navy ship from Krueng Geukeuh port near the town of Lhokseumawe, said Aceh military spokesman Ari Soediko.

The pullout is part of the third of four planned withdrawals under a historic peace pact signed on August 15 in Helsinki between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government.

Soediko said a total of 5,696 soldiers would be withdrawn from Aceh in the third phase of redeployment. The last batch in this phase is to leave on Friday.

Some 12,000 troops were redeployed from Aceh in the two first phases of the withdrawal.

The remainder of the 24,000 non-local troops and a large contingent of military police will follow once GAM fulfils its commitment to hand over a total of 840 weapons, its declared arsenal, by the end of the fourth stage in December.

Observers see the agreement as the best chance yet of ending the conflict which has claimed about 15,000 lives, most of them civilians, since GAM began its struggle for an independent state in 1976.

Under the accord GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence in exchange for a form of local government in Aceh, a province of about four million people.

The peace pact was spurred by the December 2004 tsunami disaster, which left 131,000 people dead in Aceh.

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