Terror cell planned in Sabah
KOTA KINABALU: Ten suspected Islamic militants who were trying to establish a terror cell in Sabah have been arrested in Sabah, police said yesterday.
Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun said the Abu Sayyaf group was attempting to set up the terror cell so that they could successfully arrange for the safe passage of Islamic State (IS) militants in the region to the southern Philippines.
"The militants were to receive weapons training in the Philippines.
"The same terror cell in Sabah would later have been used to launch attacks in the state," he said in a statement issued in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Mohamad Fuzi said one of the suspects detained in Sabah is a Filipino, believed to have been involved in a series of militarystyle training exercises at a southern Philippine camp.
The 39-year-old man was picked up in Sandakan together with two locals and two Filipinos in an operation mounted by the Bukit Aman Special Branch CounterTerrorism Division (E8) on Jan 25 and 26.
Mohamad Fuzi said the man had taken an oath of allegiance in 2000 before a senior leader of a terrorist group in the southern Philippines.
"The suspect had also received instructions from a senior leader of the Daesh terrorist group in southern Philippines to facilitate the entry of some Daesh terrorists from Sandakan into the country to join the terrorist group in Zamboanga, southern Philippines," he said.
He said the other four suspects, aged between 33 and 50, were responsible for assisting the first suspect in despatching terrorists to the southern Philippines, making Sandakan a transit.
Meanwhile, Mohamad Fuzi said three Filipino men and a local woman were detained in Penampang on Feb 4.
He added the suspects, comprising a gardener, labourer, private company security officer and an unemployed were aged between 27 and 32.
According to the IGP, the 27year-old man in the group was a right-hand man of a senior Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) leader based in Basilan, southern Philippines.
On Feb 6, an operation was launched in Sandakan, which led to the arrest of a 49-year-old Filipino taxi driver man with a Malaysian permanent resident status.
Mohamad Fuzi said on Jan 18, a local lorry driver was detained by the Singaporean authorities for allegedly planning to join a terrorist group in Syria.
The 34-year-old man from Penang was later handed over to the Special Branch E8 in Johor Bharu, Johor, on Feb 2 for further investigations, he added.
This is the second batch of arrests this year.
Malaysia has rounded up numerous suspected militants in recent times as fears grow that the influence of the IS group could encourage extremists to launch attacks in the Muslim-majority country.
A grenade attack on a bar on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in June 2016 wounded eight people. IS had claimed responsibility for the attack.
Abu Sayyaf, originally a loose network of militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, has splintered into factions, with some continuing to engage in banditry and kidnappings. One faction pledged allegiance to IS and joined militants in the siege of Marawi, which claimed more than 1,100 lives. -Bernama, AFP and Reuters