ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / July 8, 2014) – Malaysia has intercepted a Syrian national who was trying to slip into the southern Philippines using a forged Malta passport, reports said Tuesday.
Malaysia’s The Star Online said the 32-year old Khaled Abdul Rahman Mohamad has been arrested in Sandakan town in Sabah before he could board ferry bound for Zamboanga City in southern Philippines on June 17. Mohamad arrived in Kuala Lumpur on June 6 using a Syrian passport.
Authorities are still investigating Mohamad, who pleaded guilty on July 7 for violating Malaysia’s Passport Act 1966. Investigation said that Mohammad has paid money to obtain the fake Malta passport. But authorities did not say where he got the passport and his reason for trying to sneak in the Philippines.
Just last month, Malaysian authorities arrested three of its citizens, one of them came from fresh training from southern Philippines, where a Malaysian bomb expert Zulkifli bin Hir who goes by the alias Marwan, is actively training recruits alongside with the militant group Abu Sayyaf.
Zulkifli, a leader of the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia and member of the Jemaah Islamiya, had trained a significant number of bombers and new cadre of Malaysian militants who are looking for combat experience before joining militant groups active in Syria and Iraq, among them the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, according to another report by the Kuala Lumpur-based newspaper New Straits Times.
Citing intelligence sources, the report said those who had gone for training at the Abu Sayyaf camps had also participated in the group’s militant and criminal activities. It said militants were required to pay a significant amount of money for the training that would provide them with the skills and confidence needed in battle.
It was not immediately known whether the spike on ransom kidnappings by the Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines and cross-border raids in Sabah was connected to the training of the militants or if ransom money is being used to finance the training and for the purchase of weapons by the group.(Mindanao Examiner)
20