Malaysian authorities have detained 50 Filipino residents of
Sabah police commissioner Hamza Taib said the suspects were rounded up as part of the ongoing investigation on a July 3 letter sent to the Tambunan District Office by the “Militant Commandos” threatening to raid Tambunan, a farming valley located in the Interior Division of Sabah.
The New Strait Times quoted Hamza as saying that the letter warned Tambunan residents, police officers, and security forces that the group’s “Secret Sulu Army” has surrounded Tambunan and is prepared to attack the district anytime within this month or August.
“We are investigating the claim and tracing the source of the letter. We believe the individual responsible for it had acted on his or her own accord and had no links to the Sulu militants,” Hamza said.
“However, the police and the security forces are taking all these threats seriously and we are investigating the case under Section 505 of the Penal Code (for statements conducing to public mischief),” the Malaysian official said.
Hamza said the Militant Commandos threatened to terrorize and burn down Tambunan to avenge the deaths of 68 followers of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III in the hands of Malaysian security forces in Lahad Datu, Sabah on March.
Tambunan, a valley district located 80 kilometers east of Kota Kinabalu, has a population of 36,000 composed of Malay, Chinese and other Sabahan ethnic groups. It has a land area of 1,347 square kilometers.
Malaysian Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi assured that the East Sabah Security Command (Esscom) is ready to face any threat from the “Sulu terrorists.”
“Don’t try to threaten us. Don’t try to do anything because it is not just the police and army, but also the people of Malaysia who will rise to oppose the threat from the terrorists from Sulu,” he said, as quoted by Bernama, Malaysia’s state news agency.
In Taguig City, Sulu Sultanate spokesman Abraham Idjirani said it has no information about the armed group or its plan to attack Tambunan.
Idjirani said Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram, the sultan’s brother and commander of the 166-member Royal Security Forces (RSF) in Sabah, did not say anything about the reported threats when he called up over the weekend.
“Raja Muda and the RSF are observing Ramadan in Sabah. They would not do anything like that because they are still complying with the unilateral ceasefire ordered by Sultan Kiram,” he said.
Idjirani, however, hinted that the so-called Militant Commandos could be the 1,000 “volunteers” who sailed from Sulu to back up RSF. He said the group could have been angered by the continuous illegal arrests and harassment of Filipinos living in Sabah.
In one occasion, Idjirani recounted that a Malaysian security unit recently raided a house being occupied by Filipinos who were then taking their morning meal.
“What the government of (Malaysian) Prime Minister Najib Razak’s been doing is un-Islamic, arresting their fellow Muslims who were fasting in observance of Ramadan. I would like to personally ask Najib Razak if he is indeed a true blood Muslim,” the sultanate official said.
While not condoning the Sulu militants’ threat to use violence, Idjirani said the Sulu Sultanate “understands” their sentiments against the Malaysian government.
The Sulu Sultanate’s RSF battled Malaysian security forces on March, a month after covertly going to Lahad Datu to revive the sultanate’s long-standing claim over Sabah.
The sultanate insists that it owns Sabah, which Malaysia annexed as one of its 13 states when it gained independence in 1963.
http://manilastandardtoday.com/2013/07/22/kl-rounds-up-50-pinoys-probes-commando-plot/
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