Wirra Jaya Ausindo 2016
Joint military exercise between Indonesian Army 203rd Mech Infantry Bn and 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (5th RAR) in Darwin, September 2016.
Be patient. with a production capacity PINDAD today, it takes 2-5 years to complete all the tanks for all cavalry battalion, and need 7-12 years to replace all light tank AMX
Philippines: Abu Sayyaf frees three Indonesian hostages
Sekkingstad, centre, and three Indonesians to his right are photographed in Indanan town [Nickee Butlangan/AFP]
The Abu Sayyaf armed group has released three Indonesian hostages in the southern Philippines a day after freeing a Norwegian captive held for a year and repeatedly threatened with beheading.
Sunday's release - negotiated by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels - took place on the island of Jolo in Sulu province.
Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, who was let go on Saturday, described the ordeal as "devastating", carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience, which included the decapitations of two Canadians kidnapped with him.
The three Indonesian hostages were identified as Lorence Koten, Theorus Kopong, and Emanuel Arakain. They were abducted from the Sabah state of Malaysia in July. (aljazeera)
Glad to know they freed... hope they can go back to their family quickly.
Philippines: Abu Sayyaf frees three Indonesian hostages
View attachment 335652 Sekkingstad, centre, and three Indonesians to his right are photographed in Indanan town [Nickee Butlangan/AFP]
The Abu Sayyaf armed group has released three Indonesian hostages in the southern Philippines a day after freeing a Norwegian captive held for a year and repeatedly threatened with beheading.
Sunday's release - negotiated by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels - took place on the island of Jolo in Sulu province.
Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, who was let go on Saturday, described the ordeal as "devastating", carrying a backpack with a bullet hole as a reminder of a near-death experience, which included the decapitations of two Canadians kidnapped with him.
The three Indonesian hostages were identified as Lorence Koten, Theorus Kopong, and Emanuel Arakain. They were abducted from the Sabah state of Malaysia in July. (aljazeera)
Glad to know they freed... hope they can go back to their family quickly.
Hi guys, just read an international news about the C-705 failed launch; it said that probably the failure due to aplications of some Indonesia's tech (bestchinanews). Regardless the authenticity of the site; thats mean we already have a glimpse of SSM technology, thus ... the failure was a silver lining in the clouds .... Keep faith up guys.
From left to right Lorence Koten, Emmanuel Arakian, Defense Minister Ryan Mizard Ryan Cudu, Lt. Gen. Mayoralgo dela Cruz and Teo Doros Kofong in a posterity photo. (PHOTO BY JULIE ALIPALA/ INQUIRER MINDANAO/ PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER)
ZAMBOANGA CITY – Teo Doros Kofong, one of the three Indonesians who were freed by their Abu Sayyaf captors, urged the government to finished off the bandit group.
Kofong, in a press briefing late Sunday afternoon, said his life in captivity was “very hard.”
“That is why we request the Philippine and Indonesian to keep conducting operations and as soon as possible crush this ASG,” he said.
Kofong and his fellow fishermen, Lorence Koten and Emmanuel Arakian, were freed before midnight on Saturday.
“I feel so relieved that now we are free because I was thinking that I would be beheaded,” he said, expressing his gratitude to the Moro National Liberation Front for negotiating for their release.
“I am expressing my gratitude to the Philippine and Indonesian governments for this freedom,” he said.
The three fishermen were freed to MNLF founding chair Nur Misuari in Indanan town.
The three were kidnapped last July 19 in Lahad Datu in Indonesia. SFM
...............From left to right Lorence Koten, Emmanuel Arakian, Defense Minister Ryan Mizard Ryan Cudu
Southeast Asia: World piracy hotbed
Exactly five years ago, the Royal Thai Navy vessels HTMS Narathiwat and HTMS Similan joined 25 countries in an international mission to patrol the pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast. (Bangkok Post file photo by Wassana Nanuam)
JAKARTA - Sembara Oktafian was in the engine room of a tugboat chugging toward the Philippines when something didn't sound right.
There was shouting on deck, and shots. Gunmen had boarded, and their message was clear: Come with us, or we will kill you. They shot one crew member and kidnapped four others.
"They were a terrible-looking group, running around with AK-47s," Mr Sembara said. "I thought they were going to kill us all, but they only took my friends."
The April attack, in the Celebes Sea south of the Philippines, was not isolated, or even out of the ordinary. Southeast Asia now accounts for the majority of seafaring attacks globally, surpassing the Horn of Africa, according to the International Maritime Bureau. And governments in the region are scrambling to combat the problem.
"In Somalia, the attacks have gone down," said Noel Choong, head of the maritime bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. "In Nigeria, the numbers are still there, but not as much as in Asia."
In 2015, there were 178 attacks in Southeast Asia and none in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea region near Somalia, according to the maritime bureau, after a multinational security crackdown there. The bureau also reported that in the first half of this year, Southeast Asia was the scene of more than one-third of the 98 attacks and attempted attacks globally.
The men who attacked the tugboat, an Indonesian-flagged vessel that had been hauling a coal barge, were later identified as members of Abu Sayyaf, an extremist group based in the southern Philippines that has acted as a hostage-for-ransom gang for more than two decades. It has also pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State.
Abu Sayyaf is responsible for most of the kidnappings at sea in Southeast Asia, but several other criminal gangs also operate in those waters.
Between March and August, Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 25 Indonesian and six Malaysian seamen in attacks along vital trade routes for coal barges in the Sulu Archipelago. The extremist group continues to hold nine Indonesian sailors from the recent attacks.
Alarmed by the spate of kidnappings for ransom, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed in May to conduct coordinated naval security patrols in the Sulu Archipelago, and establish a hotline among themselves. In August, they agreed to allow "hot pursuits" of kidnappers and armed robbers by their maritime security forces into one another's territory.
"The idea is for the closest patrol boat to take the necessary action," said Arrmanatha Nasir, an Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman.
The Indonesian navy thwarted the hijacking of an oil tanker by pirates off the southwest coast of Borneo in May, and arrested nine suspects. But attacks on oil tankers have become less frequent as global fuel prices have dropped, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.
Many attackers are instead targeting ships carrying valuable commercial cargo that can be sold on the black market, such as crude palm oil.
"Most of the criminal gangs that hijack fuel tankers are waiting for fuel prices to go up again, and then they will resume hijacking them," said Karsten von Hoesslin, a maritime piracy expert and the host of the National Geographic Channel's Lawless Oceans<>, who wrote the report.
"Until then, they are attacking ships carrying other types of cargo that is now more valuable," he said.
Before the recent surge, Southeast Asia did have some success battling maritime crime.
In 1993, the maritime bureau documented about 20 maritime criminal attacks and attempted attacks in Southeast Asia, but that number steadily rose to nearly 250 by 2000.
Joint patrols by Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand in the Strait of Malacca - one of the world's busiest sea lanes - drove down maritime crimes between 2006 and 2009. In 2008, there were only 54 attempted or actual attacks in the region, according to the maritime bureau, compared with 92 in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea region.
The recent kidnappings have alarmed the Indonesian government in Jakarta, in particular, because Indonesian tugboats have been the primary targets of Abu Sayyaf militants.
Indonesia orchestrated the release of 10 sailors who had been kidnapped in late March by Abu Sayyaf and held for nearly two months by paying, according to the Indonesian news media, a ransom of more than $1 million, or more than 35 million baht.
Days after that attack, Abu Sayyaf attacked the TB Henry, the tugboat that Mr Sembara was on. He and five other seamen aboard - including the man who had been shot and wounded - were left behind as four others were taken because there was not enough room on the attackers' speedboat.
Abu Sayyaf attacked another tugboat in June in the Sulu Sea, taking seven Indonesian sailors hostage. Two of those hostages, after being threatened with beheading, escaped in August by swimming out to sea from the Philippine separatist island of Jolo, where Abu Sayyaf is based. They were rescued.
Some doubt that the recent security agreements to counter the kidnappings will be effective or that the countries will carry through on their pledges of cooperation.
Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, who specialises in Southeast Asian security issues, said the agreements would not satisfy the Indonesian government.
"They have been trying to deal with this for several months, and it does not match because there is such a disconnect, and a lack of political will and capabilities," Abuza said. "These countries are so very guarded about their territories, but they have very little ways to defend them, which makes them very insecure."
That is little comfort to shipping company bosses such as Suharjono, the operations manager of Global Trans Energy International Jakarta, which owns the TB Henry.
The four sailors kidnapped from the TB Henry were released after 25 days. The company said no ransom had been paid, but the local news media speculated that ransoms had been paid for all Indonesian and Malaysian sailors who had been released.
"My crew is still traumatised," said Mr Suharjono, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. "And security is just getting worse."
Exercise is one of the media to enhance the capabilities and skills better. Moreover, it relates to maintaining the sovereignty of the nation. Similarly, being conducted by the Air Squadron 21. Exercise air strikes ground (Air to Ground Combat) was performed using the MK-81 bombs that are often labeled Firecracker (Mercon). This exercise held from Wednesday (14/9) until Friday (16/9) at AWR Pandanwangi, Lumajang.
"They have been trying to deal with this for several months, and it does not match because there is such a disconnect, and a lack of political will and capabilities," Abuza said. "These countries are so very guarded about their territories, but they have very little ways to defend them, which makes them very insecure."
Just like in previous years, Air Force Flight School (Sekbang) always conduct exercises Navigation Distance Medium and Long Distance followed by the students. This navigation training materials take route from Air Force Base (AFB) Adi Sucipto Yogyakarta, Madiun Iswahyudi air base, and finally landed at the air base in Malang Abdul Rahman Saleh (07/09/2016).
Three Indonesian hostages freed by Abu Sayyaf, fourth to follow
Zamboanga, Philippine | Mon, September 19 2016 | 08:28 am
Three Indonesian sailors released on Sunday and handed over to Philippine authorities in Zamboanga will fly to Manila to undergo a medical check-up before being flown home to Indonesia on Tuesday.(JP/Haeril Halim)
"From day to day in their captivity, it felt like we were just waiting for our time to be beheaded," Theodorus Kopong Koten recalls his captivity by the Abu Sayyaf group.
For 75 days he had been a hostage of the notorious militants in the Sulu islands region of the southern Philippines. He is one of three Indonesian sailors released by the Abu Sayyaf group on Sunday in Zamboanga.
"It was very scary. There was no life there. I cannot say thank you enough for the release, and it is only God who could respond to the efforts by Indonesian and Philippine authorities to make the release possible," Theodorus said on Sunday.
The other two sailors are Lorens Koten and Emmanuel. The three crewmen were on board a Malaysian-flagged fishing boat when kidnapped by the militants on July 9 in Lahat Datu waters in Malaysia.
Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu, who came to Zamboanga to witness the handover of the hostages from the Philippine military to Indonesian officials, said a fourth Indonesian sailor was expected to be released on Monday.
He refused to give details on the fourth Indonesian, but said all four released hostages would return to Indonesia on Tuesday.
Indonesia thanked the Philippine military for achieving the release, with help from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
Ryamizard denied speculation that the government had paid a ransom for their release. However, he said he did not know whether the hostages’ families or employers paid a ransom. Abu Sayyaf is notorious for taking hostages and threatening to behead them for ransom.
"We, Indonesia and the Philippines, do not want to be extorted. We did not and never will pay a single penny," Ryamizard said told a press briefing in Zamboanga on Sunday.
Once the fourth hostage is finally released, the group will still be holding another five Indonesians. At least 18 Indonesians have been kidnapped in separate incidents since May, including two who reportedly escaped on their own in August.
The Indonesian government had been pushing for negotiations in the hostage crisis, Ryamirzard said, noting that securing the release of the three sailors had been a tough process.
Yet he expressed optimism that the remaining five hostages would soon be freed, following a Philippine military offensive against the Abu Sayyaf gunmen. Philippine forces have deployed 22,000 personnel to corner the militants in the Sulu islands following orders from President Rodrigo Duterte.
The commander of the Western Mindanao Command, Mayoralgo de la Cruz, said the Philippine government had cooperated with the MNLF, as the latter was familiar with the Sulu Island area and its members had a broad network in the region.
"We will be much happier once we receive all the remaining Indonesian hostages from Abu Sayyaf. President Duterte has ordered us to go after the group," Cruz said. (rin)
Two people who play significant role in diplomacy to release the hostages in many news was Maj (Ret.) Kivlan Zen of Indonesia and Nur Misuari of the MNLF, of course, also the Philippine Armed Forces that do alot of operation to fight against Abu Sayyaf.
how about C-705...? cancelled or keep buying from china...? . What is best candidate to replace C-705 if cancelled ...? how about RBS 15...? sama curhat dikit , niat mau Ngebahas alutsista china (khusunya C-705) di Group sebelah ehh malah dibully njir. Kapok aku kapok.