Muslim rebels involved in Malaysia: MNLF
Nur Misuari, who founded the Moro National Liberation Front in the late 1960s, confirmed "freedom fighters" from his group were part of the militia sent by a self-proclaimed sultan to claim the Malaysian state of Sabah.
"I cannot deny that some of them are known to be MNLF freedom fighters," Misuari told a news conference in Manila, although he insisted he was not personally involved.
"They went there without my knowledge. I have not ordered anyone to join them. It would be very irresponsible for anybody to implicate us."
Misuari made the comments while visiting Jamalul Kiram III, the self-anointed Sultan of Sulu, who sent between 100 and 300 men from the southern Philippines to Sabah on February 12 to press his ownership claim.
Thousands of Tausug sailing to Sabah to aid beleaguered comrades – MNLF exec
Thousands of Tausug from Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi have sailed to Sabah to reinforce members of the so-called royal army of the sultanate of Sulu who are fighting it out with Malaysian security forces, a Moro National Liberation Front official said Tuesday.
“We can no longer prevent our people. We are hurt and many of our people, even the non-combatants, are going to Sabah to help the sultanate,” Habib Hashim Mudjahab, chair of the MNLF’s Islamic Council Committee, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.
KL launches all-out attack on gunmen
Malaysia unleashed air strikes and mortar attacks yesterday on more than 150 Filipinos occupying a coastal village in the eastern state of Sabah but could not declare an immediate end to a three-week siege that has turned into a security nightmare for both Malaysia and the Philippines.
Three F-18 fighter jets and five Hawk ground-attack aircraft bombed and strafed the men holed up near the small north-eastern village of Kampung Taduo, said Malaysian Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
The air strikes, which lasted 30 minutes, were followed by a ground assault that killed an undetermined number of the Filipino gunmen but caused no Malaysian casualties, he said.
Malaysia attacks Filipinos to end Borneo siege
The assault follows firefights this past week that killed eight Malaysian police officers and 19 Filipino gunmen, some of whom were members of a Muslim clan that shocked Malaysia and the neighboring Philippines by slipping by boat past naval patrols last month and storming an obscure village on Borneo's eastern Sabah state.
The clansmen, armed with rifles and grenade launchers, had refused to leave the area, staking a long-dormant claim to Malaysia's entire state of Sabah, which they insisted was their ancestral birthright.
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