33 linked to 'Sulu terrorists' arrested in Semporna
Police have arrested 33 suspects, including four women, believed to be either abetting or directly involved with the 'Sulu terrorists' in Sabah.
Among them are also those suspected of providing security information to the armed intruders currently engaged with the security forces.
Semporna district police chief DSP Mohd Firdaus Francis Abdullah said that four of those arrested are suspected intruders themselves.
He said all suspects were all foreigners above 18 and were hauled up at a village near the mangroves here. They have all been sent to the Lahad Datu district police headquarters for interrogation.
"They are being sent to the Lahad Datu police district to be questioned because this is connected to Ops Daulat," he told reporters here today.
The operations, which began at about 6.30am and ended at 9am, was focused on house-to-house search.
A Bernama check at the location found that there were about 100 police from Semporna district, VAT 69 as well as General Operations Force personnel sweeping the area.
Ops Daulat, which was launched to hunt down the remaining armed intruders from Southern Philippines enters its sixth day today.
So far, 53 militants have been reportedly shot dead.
Since the incursion of the militants began in Feb 9, eight policemen have perished, two of them in the first firefight in Kampung Tanduo on March 1. Six others were killed during an ambush in Kampung Simunul, here, a day later.
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