“Still remember the 2018 movie PASKAL?” Lieutenant Commander Jason who was with Ops Fajar 8, asked me.

Of course I still remember the spirit-lifting film that showcased the prowess and patriotic spirit of PASKAL (Pasukan Khas Laut) or Naval Special Warfare Forces.

The film featured two of PASKAL’s success stories, including the Ops Teluk Aden.

Recalling the incident on January 20, 2011, Jason said the Royal Malaysian Navy (TLDM) had dispatched the Bunga Mas Lima auxiliary ship to escort chemical tanker MT Bunga Laurel to the Gulf of Aden.

The TLDM ship would stop escorting once MT Bunga Laurel had sailed past the most dangerous shipping routes so that the commercial vessel could now sail to its final destination on its own.

Bunga Mas Lima was not too far away as it docked nearby before its next escort mission.

However, in less than one hour, TLDM suddenly received a satellite call from MT Bunga Laurel, saying pirates were attempting to approach the ship.

It was just a few minutes before sundown, and if the sky was completely dark, the rescue operation would be plagued by various unknown factors and risks.

The pirates were aboard a fast boat made of fiberglass, and seven of the armed Somali pirates had managed to board the tanker.

Meanwhile, the pirates’ parent boat was also nearing MT Bunga Laurel so that more of them could come onboard to plunder the ship.

TLDM and PASKAL joining hands to launch the siege

After receiving the distress call, TLDM and PASKAL instantly mobilized their teams.

PASKAL’s Lieutenant Commander Noor Asri, who headed the rescue operation, instructed the tanker’s captain to immediately switch off all the lights and take all the crew to a safe room inside the ship to prevent them from being taken hostage by the pirates.

According to Lieutenant Commander Noor Asri, the pirates would need time to look for the control room owing to the sheer size of the ship.

After the captain reported through satellite phone that all the crew were now safe, PASKAL initiated the attack without a single moment of hesitation.

The TLDM vessel was speeding towards MT Bunga Laurel while an helicopter had been deployed to stop the pirates’ parent boat from approaching the tanker.

Jason said he was piloting the helicopter that night with PASKAL snipers to shoot at the pirates’ boat to prevent it from attacking MT Bunga Laurel.

“We were in a very dangerous situation but luckily it was already dark at that time.”

If the pirates’ boat was equipped with RPG rocket launcher, the helicopter would have been blown up. As such, Jason had to keep a safe distance from the boat.

“Luckily, the PASKAL personnel were all very well trained and they knew how to shoot the target from the dark sky.”

While Jason was stopping the pirates’ boat from approaching, Noor Asri and his team successfully boarded MT Bunga Laurel to clash with the pirates.

PASKAL successfully recaptured MT Bunga Laurel and arrest the seven Somali pirates in not more than two hours after the rescue operation started.

All the crew were safe!

Ops Fajar: the longest military operation

Many governments will send the warships to escort their commercial vessels sailing in the pirates-infested Gulf of Aden.

Similarly, when a Malaysian commercial ship intends to pass through the Gulf of Aden, it will seek the assistance from the Navy.

TLDM’s auxiliary ship will provide the escort service until the Red Sea and will sometimes take around ten days to escort a ship to the Suez Canal.

Lieutenant Commander Noor Asri said the pirates now are getting tech-savvy and will employ sophisticated technology to track an approaching vessel.

They will modify a seized commercial vessel and turn it into their parent ship from where they could acquire all the data about the routes, locations and other information about commercial ships from different countries through the Automatic Identification System or AIS found aboard the ship.

Ops Fajar can be said as TLDM’s longest military operation, lasting ten whole years and concluded only in 2018.

Throughout his 22 years of service at TLDM, Lieutenant Commander Jason has twice joined the Ops Fajar operations.

Each time during the operation, TLDM personnel would need to serve on the ship for four months and it’s like “lost in time” because you are far away from family and only have boats and the open sea to look at.

Life onboard the ship is quite monotonous, and as a TLDM personnel, you need to have a strong mentality and can withstand overwhelming stress.

Jason is working closely with PASKAL. Assuming PASKAL has planned to carry out the attack at night with a parachute jump from a height of 8,000 meters, Jason will have to fly the helicopter to the target site.

“I won’t jump down the helicopter like them. I only know how to fly the helicopter.”

Meanwhile, Noor Asri stressed that PASKAL often acts secretly and only very few people will be involved in an operation.

For example, in an operation to rescue the hostages, only a handful of people will actually carry out the mission, while the rest will conduct raids to distract the pirates.

As a senior member of PASKAL of 33 years, Commander Mohd Akhbar has joined the Ops Fajar twice, first time when two MISC ships, Bunga Melati Dua and Bunga Melati Lima, were seized by Somali pirates.

He was appointed a representative to negotiate with the pirates.

Bintara Kanan PAP (PKL) Saharudin from PASKAL said Mohd Akhbar went alone with the ransom and climbed aboard Bunga Melati Lima.

“He climbed aboard the ship with a pistol pointed at his head (by a pirate) to negotiate with their leader. He had to surrender the ransom in order to save the lives of the crew taken hostage by them.”

Air raid to destroy enemy hideout

The most unforgettable mission is the Ops Daulat that saw the mobilization of large numbers of military and police personnel to defuse a national security crisis.

PASKAL members were the first to spot the Sulu terrorists.

Saharudin said his team-mates first spotted them at Kampung Tanduo and immediately reported to PDRM Sabah.

On March 1, 2013, two VAT69 members died in a clash with the terrorists at Kampung Tanduo. The following day, six policemen were brutally killed in an ambush at Kampung Simunul while patrolling in the village.

This prompted the police to officially work with the military to get rid of the terrorists.

During the Ops Daulat, Saharudin was put in the battle squad along with UTK, GGK and VAT69 squads to hunt down the residual forces of the Sulu terrorists and locate their hiding places.

The biggest challenge is that these terrorists were good at disguising as local residents, making them very difficult to identify.

Saharudin said these people could speak fluent Bajau and Sulu languages just like the locals.

“That posed a severe risk to us because we couldn’t tell who our real enemies were!”

Why wasn’t the military operation launched much earlier on? Mohd Akhbar explained that any operation carried out needs to take into account possible loss of innocent civilian lives.

After the security was fortified by the security forces and the area became a “red zone”, then that they could carry out the assault mission.

“Military action was only the last resort,” he asserted.

In the Kampung Sungai Bilis clash, Mohd Akhbar and his team found an enemy observation post near the Sungai Bilis beach. The team had earlier managed to track the terrorists and zeroed in to a hideout on a plain.

Surrounded by the security forces, the enemies attempted to run.

“We learned about combat tracking, and when we found the traces of enemies, we followed the lead until we found their hiding place on the plain.”

As there were only five of them at that moment, they had to seek back-up support from Markas Taktikal at Felda 16 in order to get assistance from the army.

Markas Taktikal subsequently deployed two armoured personnel carriers (APCs) type Adnan that comprised one infantry platoon from the mechanism battalion, and a detector dog section.

The terrorists were forced to flee, abandoning their weapons and food supply.

To destroy the enemy post, the Royal Malaysian Air Force deployed several fighter jets to launch the bombing operation. The fleeing terrorists surrendered after days of bombing.

The Malaysian security forces continued to track the residual forces of Sulu terrorists in order to wipe out the last bit of them, and the operation ended only after a few months.

Always prepared

Bintara Kanan PAP (PKL) Saharudin confessed that his wife was six months pregnant when he was sent to the battleground, and he was unable to keep his wife company.

He said he was thankful to his wife for her understanding. As the wife of a member of the special forces, she will have to have a strong heart.

Saharudin’s wife always gave him moral support and encouragement while he was battling the enemies in Sabah.

We cannot deny that the armed forces is a highly risky profession.

Mohd Akhbar asserted that if Malaysians could not wholly count on the military forces to keep the country safe, whom else could they look to?

Even during peacetime we still need to constantly strengthen our armed forces to defend the country’s sovereignty and preserve the nation’s peace.

Imagine if your house is unfenced, the burglars could break into your house and steal your belongings. To avoid such possibility, the house owner will have to put up the fence, stainless steel window frame and install anti-theft system and CCTV cameras.

“The only easy day was yesterday,” said Mohd Akhbar, as the road ahead is always full of challenges and hardships.

He encouraged young Malaysians to join the armed forces. He also hoped more Chinese Malaysians would join PASKAL.

Read also:

GGK: shouldering the responsibility of the nation’s peace
PASKAU: TUDM’s elite special forces