He saw the other sentries moving among the frightened villagers, spreading the same message.

The name "banshee" may conjure up screaming wraiths swirling above frightened villagers, but the Banshee portable speaker is much less alarming.

They must have seen the column of Portuguese and British troops winding through the vineyards accompanied by the dozen captured horses and a crowd of frightened villagers, but they did not follow.

On May 2, a rebel rocket, launched during a firefight with paramilitary fighters, struck a church packed with frightened villagers in the country's remote northwest.

"Every day, one or two people are killed in Aceh, and any of those incidents can send thousands of frightened villagers running to the camps," Mr. Iyang said.

Strange phenomena are affecting farm and wild animals, and the frightened villagers blame a gypsy who is passing through.

The frightened villagers had left the street empty.

The rest of Holy Thunder gathered around them, loaded with frightened villagers, motors revving.

In the reprisals that followed, Sinhalese villagers were slaughtered, Tamil homes were burned, schools and churches turned into squalid camps of frightened, wounded villagers.

By the hundreds, they are being killed by frightened villagers and plantation workers protecting their crops.