Sabah on full alert over Abu Sayyaf threats

From the Manila Times (Mar 14, 2019): Sabah on full alert over Abu Sayyaf threats

Sabah extended anew its curfew hours from dawn until dusk as it went on heightened alert over threats posed by the Abu Sayyaf terror group.
Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Omar Mammah said the curfew was necessary due to the “continuing threat of kidnap-for-ransom groups and other criminals from neighboring Philippines.”
The curfew has been extended until March 27 in Sabah’s eastern coast which is now on full alert following Philippine intelligence reports that at least 17 Abu Sayyaf bandits led by subleaders Salip Mura, Majan Sahidjuan, alias Mike Apo, and Abu Radin were planning to strike or are on the hunt anew for targets of ransom kidnappings.
This was also reported by Malaysia’s The Star newspaper, saying that “intelligence reports in the Philippines stated that the group was going to team up with Tawi- Tawi-based criminal elements who acted as spotters or lookouts for hostages in the eastern Sabah sea border.”

It said Datuk Huzani Ghazali, commander of Eastern Sabah Security Command, admitted they were aware of the information about the movement of the Abu Sayyaf gunmen along the sea border. “We remain on full alert and have deployed all available forces to the area,” he said.

Ghazali added that the focus of operation was across the east coast sea border with southern Philippines that includes Semporna, Lahad Datu and Sandakan.

The Star, quoting intelligence sources, said Mura, who was responsible for at least two kidnappings in Sabah’s east coast late last year, was among the group using two speedboats with 75 horsepower-engines when they left Sulu recently.

“With him this time around was subleader Mike Apo, who was actively behind the kidnappings in Sabah between 2014 and 2016,” the newspaper sources claimed. It added that the Abu Sayyaf gunmen were looking for “higher value” targets as they failed to gain much attention after they abducted two Indonesians and a Malaysian fisher from Pegasus Reef in the Kinabatangan area on December 5.

The curfew was first implemented on July 19, 2014, following a series of kidnapping incidents which saw the beheading of Bernard Then Ted Fed, a Sarawakian, and the killing of several others, including a policeman and tourists. In September last year, the Eastern Sabah Security Zone extended a dusk-to-dawn sea curfew covering three nautical miles off the border of Tawi-Tawi’s chain of islands over Abu Sayyaf threats.

Abu Sayyaf bandits, whose group had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, have threatened to execute the Indonesian and Malaysian hostages if their demand for ransom was not met.

The sources said the bandits, who spoke in Bahasa Malaysia, released a video clip showing the Indonesian hostages — believed to be Heri Ardiansyah, 19, and Hariadin, 45 — being guarded by the gunmen. The Malaysian hostage, Jari Abdulla, 24, was not with the two.

The captives, their eyes covered with black cloth and hands tied behind their backs, made an emotional appeal to their government to save them. One militant even held a bolo to the neck of Hariadin as he spoke to the camera in a forested area.

The video, reports said, surfaced several days last month after Abu Sayyaf gunmen called up Jari’s wife, Nadin Junianti, saying that no Malaysian authorities or negotiators have contacted them to secure her husband’s release.

The gunmen said her husband would face difficulties if there was no contact from Malaysia. They also asked her for telephone contacts of Malaysian journalists. Nadin appealed to Malaysian authorities to help secure her husband’s release.

Malaysian media did not say how much ransom the Abu Sayyaf was demanding for the safe release of the hostages. The terrorists are believed to still be holding nearly a dozen captives, mostly foreigners.

https://www.manilatimes.net/sabah-on-full-alert-over-abu-sayyaf-threats/525259/