TIMIKA -- A foreigner was shot dead by unknown attackers Saturday in the massive Freeport mining concession in Indonesia's Papua region, police said.

A police source, who did not want to be named, told Agence France-Presse the man was an Australian but local media reported he was an American.

Papua police chief Bagus Ekodanto confirmed that a foreigner had been shot dead but gave no further details.

"At around 5:00 a.m. foreign national was shot dead," he told AFP.

The police source identified the victim as 38-year-old Australian mining expert Drew Nicholas Grant, and said he was shot as he travelled in a car with three others around 5:00 a.m. (2000 GMT Friday).

The Jakarta Post newspaper's website gave the same name for the victim but said he was a 29-year-old American employee of the mine.

The incident took place on a road in the mining concession area belonging to the local subsidiary of US-based Freeport McMoRan, which operates the massive Grasberg gold and copper mine in eastern Papua province, police said.

Two American teachers and an Indonesian colleague who worked at the mine were shot dead in an ambush near the facility in 2002.

US and Indonesian investigators found that Papuan separatist rebels were behind that attack, but local rights groups have long maintained the military had a hand in the killings.