KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Three Indonesians have been kidnapped by armed men off an area in Malaysia, police said Sunday, where militants from the Abu Sayyaf group have been blamed for repeated kidnappings.
Malaysian marine police chief Abdul Rahim Abdullah confirmed the kidnapping to AFP, adding: “It happened close to midnight yesterday. The three were crew in a fishing trawler.”
Authorities did not say if they believed the Abu Sayyaf was involved.
The incident happened off Lahad Datu in Malaysia’s eastern Sabah state on Borneo island, which is just a short boat ride away from the southern Philippines.
Islamist guerillas from the south of that country staged a bloody assault in the area in 2013.
Earlier this year the Abu Sayyaf beheaded two Canadian tourists who had been kidnapped and a Malaysian man was beheaded last year.
READ: AFP vows to bring ASG to justice after Canadian hostage beheaded
Seven Indonesian sailors were kidnapped at gunpoint in June.
Also this year the group kidnapped 14 Indonesian sailors, holding them in their stronghold in the southern Philippines. They were later freed but there was no information on whether a ransom was paid.
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The Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of a few hundred Islamist militants, formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, that has earned millions of dollars from kidnappings-for-ransom.
Although its leaders have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, analysts say they are mainly focused on lucrative kidnappings. JE