Malaysia said yesterday it needed to boost security surveillance in Borneo after gunmen traveling by boat abducted two men near a town cited in a US travel warning.
Police in Sabah state on Borneo said on Monday that the maritime border with the Philippines had been sealed off to prevent the gunmen escaping after they snatched the two men from a seaweed farm near the town of Semporna.
The US issued an advisory last month warning that criminal and terrorist groups were planning attacks against foreigners in isolated areas of eastern Sabah, including Semporna, Sipadan and Mabul.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said the abduction was not a terrorist act and that Abu Sayyaf was not responsible.
“It is not the Abu Sayyaf group. It is a normal robbery,” he said, but said that Malaysia had to be more vigilant and intensify surveillance in the region.
“It is a wake-up call. We need to have more boats that can be deployed in shallow waters and security personnel armed with night vision goggles,” he said.
Sabah police chief Noor Rashid Ibrahim said on Monday that the two men were seized in the early hours of Monday by five men — including Malaysians and foreigners — armed with two rifles.
Noor Rashid declined to say which country they came from, and also sidestepped questions over whether they were from the Abu Sayyaf militant group, which is active in the southern Philippines.
He said the gunmen arrived by boat and were believed to still be in Malaysian waters. Police said they intended to steal the farm payroll but instead abducted the two managers when no money was found.
In 2000, Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 21 people, including 10 foreigners, in Sipadan and took them to their base on Jolo island in the Philippines, holding most of them for several months.
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