PETALING JAYA, 13 Mar: The former Deputy Chief of the Malaysian Army, Lieutenant General (Rtd) Datuk Abdul Ghafir Abdul Hamid urged political leaders to leave the operation areas in Sabah to provide more freedom for the commander in chief of operations to carry out duties.
This is because their involvement will only make the situation chaotic as well as cause the objective focus of safety to be disrupted.
He added that this matter needs to be addressed urgently in order to avoid increasing the number of casualties of security personnel and the public.
“This is not the time for politicians to interfere with this operation. We should not be able to see politicians at the operations location and giving instructions.
“They should clear and give freedom to the commander in chief to lead this operation,” he said at a press conference at the PKR headquarters today.
To date, 10 members of the security forces have died in the invasion incident in Sabah which started on 12 February, while 56 terrorists have been shot dead.
Apart from that, he claimed that the ability of the Defence Intelligence Staff Division (DISD) which is being used for political purposes has caused them to fail in obtaining early information as a preparation in preventing this incident from happening.
“When we are slow to act, they are already ready. A small group has become large and they have prepared strong defences. Our work then becomes difficult,” he added.
He stressed that the emphasis on the reports which lean more towards politics rather than security issues may aggravate the situation.
In the meantime, Lembah Pantai Member of Parliament, Nurul Izzah Anwar repeated the earlier call from Pakatan Rakyat for a special Parliamentary session to be held to discuss this issue.
She stressed that Parliament is the best field for politicians to find long-term solutions so that this incident will not recur.