From thestar.com : “22 more bodies of militants removed from Kampung Tanduo”
“Security forces have removed 22 more bodies of Sulu militants from Kampung Tanjung Batu and Semporna, and recorded another… shot dead, Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Hamza Taib said Monday.
“The bodies were sent to the Tawau Hospital and Lahad Datu Hospital for forensic investigations and post mortem, he added.
“…death toll among the Sulu intruders to 54.xxx This brings the number of injured personnel to five.
“xxx Comm Hamza also said six more people have been detained for suspected links xxx bringing the total to 97 detained under Second 130(C) of the Security Offences and Special Measures Act 2012.
“Another 125 people have also been detained for trying to enter areas where operations were being conducted.
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And another story, the bittersweet firsthand account of a Malaysian photographer who saw an armed combatant for the first time in her 17-year career as photojournalist in Malaysia – it should have been set to musical arrangement by Hans Zimmer:
From thestar.com Normimie Diun, photographer “The armed gunman was watching us”:
(where are my violins — i need some strings here..and…cue music please, decrescendo)
: “In my 17 years with The Star as a photographer, this is the first time I had come face-to-face with a gunman in a battle zone.”
“As we passed Kampung Labian, I saw a shadow of a man squatting among oil palm trees on the left side of the road, about 10m from our car. I said that I had seen a man.
“Serieffa (Mushtafa Al Bakry, the Al-Hijrah television news journalist) who was driving the car said he too saw the man holding a gun.
“I looked again at the man and noticed that he was holding a gun that looked like an M-16. He was dressed in black and looked like he was in his 50s.
“I saw that he was staring at us. He looked like a typical villager but he was holding a gun.
“My companions wanted to shoot the armed man (with their cameras). I shouted to them: ‘Don’t!’ I also told them to keep down and put away their cameras.
“My immediate thought was that he could mistake our equipment as weapons and fire at us.
“In the car we kept saying ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar’ (God is great, God is great) as Serieffa slammed the accelerator and sped off at 120kph.”
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And other stories:
“No tunnels found in KgTanduo” (thestar.com);
“Navy fetching 400 more Sabah evacuees” (interaksyon.com);
“Raja muda escapes arrest in Sabah” (rappler.com);
“Filipinos flee Sabah for fear of reprisal” (YahooPh);
Here’s the 4am edition of my news site: Firefight nego ends (Ch News Asia headline: “Diplomatic efforts hit a roadblock”); PNoy calls on sultan followers to stand down (surrender was the word he used in his statement) ( abs-cbn headline: “Aquino addresses Sabah conflict”); “Sabah, Malaysia’s ‘Wild East’” (Agence France Presse, storified by interaksyon, rappler); “Aquino says Sabah is a conspiracy” (rappler); “Sultan daughter blasts Aquino over conspiracy claim” (abs-cbn); “Only an intervention can end Sabah conflict” (Inquirer); “KL sends ‘cavalry’ to Sabah” (Agence France Presse, Associated Press, the star, Asia News Network, storified by Inquirer). Read all the stories, to have a panoramic view of the Sabah firefight, with details and context, at:
Here’s the story on which the blog post title was based.From Agence France Presse :
” xxx
“The exact identities of the armed men remains a mystery, but Malaysia’s military chief, Zulkifeli Zin, told a press conference in Sabah on Sunday that the intruders appeared to have combat experience.
“Their “insurgency guerrilla technique is quite good,” he was quoted as saying.
“Zulkifeli said Malaysia’s military and the police were adopting a cautious approach in their plan to resolve the standoff with Agbimuddin’s group in Tanduao.
“He noted that Agbimuddin’s group had planned their location around the village in such a way that they would inflict casualties if Malaysian security forces enter the area.
“They are at the center and have people spread out, including snipers,” Zulkifeli said.
” “They know we will suffer casualties if we go in as the area is open,” he said.
” “They are under close surveillance by our special forces,” Zulkifeli said.
“But he added that while Malaysia was determined to “bring this episode to a close” as soon as possible, any action would take a little more time.”
