Malaysians get weapons from RP to fight in RI
Malaysians get weapons from RP to fight in RI
KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Malaysian police on Friday said they have arrested two Malaysians and 13 Indonesians for allegedly trying to smuggle weapons to Islamic militants fighting Christians in Indonesia's Maluku Islands.
Malaysian police chief Norian Mai said police seized two M-16 rifles, six pistols and ammunition from the 15 men, who were traveling in a boat off Sabah state on Borneo Island.
The group had bought the weapons on Setangkai Island in the southern Philippines and were on their way to the eastern Indonesian town of Ambon when police intercepted them, the national Bernama news agency quoted Norian as saying.
"In the course of our investigations, we established two groups from Malaysia and Indonesia were involved in collecting weapons to be sent over to Islamic fighters in Ambon," Norian said.
Norian said the two Malaysians have been detained under the Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite detention without trial.
They are Rashid Ismail, 35, an electrical engineer and Jaafar bin Karamah, 42, a gold trader. Norian said Indonesian police were in Malaysia to question the 13 Indonesian suspects.
He said Malaysia was worried about the rampant trans-border smuggling of firearms for use in ethnic conflicts in Indonesia.
"Police were alarmed over the easy ways in which illegal weapons from Southern Philippines fell into the hands of unauthorized people. This is a serious development as the scope for the entry of such weapons appeared very wide," Bernama quoted Norian as saying.
Fighting between Muslims and Christians has left more than 5,000 people dead in the Maluku Islands, about 2,560 kilometers (1,600 miles) northeast of Jakarta, since January 1999.
Malaysian police say a small group of Malaysians who have received military training in Afghanistan are fighting alongside Indonesian Muslims against the Christians.
Jakarta police say at least four Malaysians were behind the bombing of a shopping mall on Aug. 1 and another blast on July 22 at a church in the Indonesian capital. Dozens of people were injured in the explosions, both of which were in the capital.
Authorities last week arrested a Malaysian man who was injured when the bomb he was carrying exploded at the mall.
Police said the motive for the bombings was not clear. However, one of the suspects has been linked to a militant Muslim group in Malaysia and Islamic paramilitaries in the Maluku Islands.