KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police arrested a suspected leader and seven members of the Daesh-linked Abu Sayyaf Islamist group in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, a police source said on Sunday.
Police detained Hajjar Abdul Mubin — otherwise known as Abu Asrie — in the Wednesday raid, according to the source, who was not authorized to speak to the media on the case.
Hajjar, a Filipino, was arrested along with one other Filipino and six Malaysians from the Borneo state of Sabah, which shares a porous maritime border with the Philippines.
The arrests were first reported by the English daily, The Star.
The Abu Sayyaf is notorious for bombings, beheadings, extortion and kidnap-for-ransom in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines.
The arrests were the latest in an ongoing crackdown on militancy by Muslim-majority Malaysia. More than 250 people have been arrested between 2013 and 2016 for suspected militancy linked to Daesh.
Governments in Southeast Asia have been worried over the possible expansion of Daesh in the region as battle-hardened militants return home after the collapse of their self-styled caliphate in the Middle East.
Militants loyal to Daesh seized large parts of Marawi city in the southern Philippines in May. Some 620 militants, 136 soldiers and police and 45 civilians were killed in more than 100 days of fighting.
Malaysian police arrest suspected Abu Sayyaf leader, seven others
Malaysian police arrest suspected Abu Sayyaf leader, seven others
Protesters try to attack driver after truck speeds through anti-Iran demonstration in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles police responded Sunday after somebody drove a U-Haul box truck down a street crowded with marchers demonstrating in support of the Iranian people, causing protesters to scramble out of the way and then run after the speeding vehicle to try to attack the driver.
The U-Haul truck, with its side mirrors shattered, was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. ABC7 news helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay as demonstrators swarmed the truck, throwing punches at the driver and thrusting flagpoles through the driver’s side window.
The police department confirmed its officers were on the scene but didn’t immediately say if anyone was arrested.
Two people were evaluated by paramedics and both declined treatment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Several hundred people had gathered Sunday afternoon in the Westwood neighborhood to protest against the Iranian theocracy. The LA police department eventually issued a dispersal order, and by 5 p.m. only about a hundred protesters were still at the scene, ABC7 reported.
Activists say a crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has killed more than 530 people. Protesters flooded the streets in Iran’s capital of Tehran and its second-largest city again Sunday.
