KUALA LUMPUR, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian police said Wednesday that 11 Malaysians and Filipinos with suspected link to terrorist organizations, including the Abu Sayyaf militant group in southern Philippines, were arrested.
The 11 suspects were arrested in police operations from Jan. 24 to Feb. 6, national police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said. Among them, 10 were arrested in the state of Sabah on North Borneo, bordering southern Philippines.
Two Malaysians and three Philippine nationals were rounded up in the first operations. A 39-year-old Filipino has received weapons training in the southern Philippines. He has received order from a senior Islamic State (IS) leader in southern Philippines to bring in several militants to join the IS group in Zamboanga via Malaysia.
The the other four were assisting him smuggling foreign militants to the southern Philippines, Mohamad Fuzi said.
Three male Filipinos and a Malaysian woman were arrested in early February, including a 27-year-old man, a senior member of the Abu Sayyaf militant group based in Basilan, southern Philippines, Mohamad Fuzi said, adding that follow-up operations saw the arrest of a 49-year-old Philippine man, who holds Malaysian permanent-resident status and worked as a taxi driver.
Based on the information obtained from the 10 suspects, the Abu Sayyaf group was attempting to form a terror cell in Sabah to arrange for the entry of IS militants in Southeast Asia to southern Philippines, while the same terror cell would later be used to launch attacks in Sabah, Mohamad Fuzi said.
Another suspect was a 34-year-old Malaysian man, arrested upon deportation back to Malaysia from Singapore, where he was picked up by the Singaporean authorities for attempting to go to Syria to join the IS there, he said.
