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.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
REVELRY ON HOLD: Students marched in Belgrade amid New Year’s events, saying that ‘there is nothing to celebrate’ after the train station tragedy killed 15 Thousands of students marched in Belgrade and two other Serbian cities during a New Year’s Eve protest that went into yesterday, demanding accountability over the fatal collapse of a train station roof in November. The incident in the city of Novi Sad occurred on Nov. 1 at a newly renovated train facility, killing 14 people — aged six to 74 — at the scene, while a 15th person died in hospital weeks later. Public outrage over the tragedy has sparked nationwide protests, with many blaming the deaths on corruption and inadequate oversight of construction projects. In Belgrade, university students marched through the capital
RSS