Volcano hikers tell of terror after Indonesia quake

Yahoo – AFP, Bara Elank, 31 July 2018

Hikers were able to start descending the mountain Monday after guides
discovered an alternate route that was unaffected by the landslides

More than 500 hikers and guides stranded by landslides on an Indonesian mountain after an earthquake have returned to safety, with some recalling their terror when tonnes of rock cascaded down.

The shallow 6.4-magnitude quake, which struck early Sunday on Lombok island and was followed by scores of aftershocks, triggered major landslides on Mount Rinjani, blocking the hiking routes that criss-cross it.

Some 800 trekkers and their guides were on the mountain when the quake struck including citizens from the United States, France, the Netherlands, Thailand, Germany and 21 other countries, according to search and rescue officials.

Hundreds managed to find a way down on Sunday and over 500 more reached safety Monday night.

While most were able to pick their way down the mountain on foot, at least three arrived at Sembalun village on the lower slopes by helicopter, according to officials.

Some returned with harrowing tales of being caught out by the quake, which killed 17 people across the holiday island including one on the mountain.

At least 16 people were killed in the earthquake across affected areas of Lombok, 

while hundreds of buildings were destroyed including a health clinic

Australian hiker Stanley Yu said the ground began to shake about 20 minutes after his group reached Rinjani’s peak.

"The earthquake lasted about 10-20 seconds. After that everybody was rushing down," he told AFP.

"On the way down there was another earthquake and that made everyone panic -- it was pretty scary."

One Thai tourist, who reached the foot of the mountain Tuesday morning, felt the ground shake beneath her sleeping bag.

"I felt the earth move... and thought 'Huh? What’s happening?'" she said.

"I got out of my bed and then I saw a landslide (with) rocks falling down."

A male friend said he watched parts of Rinjani's slopes collapse.

"The whole mountain, rocks, fell down -- I was a bit afraid," he said.

Map showing the area on Lombok, Indonesia, where hikers were trapped 

after an earthquake

'Tired but in good condition'

The remaining 500 or so hikers were able to start climbing down on Monday after guides discovered an alternate route that was unaffected by the landslides.

The last three trekkers -- two porters and a guide -- are expected to arrive at the base of the mountain by 7pm local time, said Agus Hendra Sanjaya, a spokesman for the search and rescue agency on the island's main city of Mataram.

"We have searched the (Rinjani) area, there are no more hikers," he told AFP.

"We started this morning at 6am and will continue to monitor the situation for the next three days from our base at the foot of the mountain in Sembalun."

Most of the trekkers reached the base of the mountain by late Monday evening, according to I Gusti Lanang Wiswananda, another spokesman from the Mataram search and rescue agency.

"They were all tired but in good condition and were checked by our medical teams on the ground upon arrival," he told AFP.

Helicopters and search teams had been deployed to scour the mountain's slopes and drop food supplies for those stranded on it.

More than 7,500 people are staying in temporary shelters and in need of clean

water, according to officials

Thousands of buildings were destroyed across Lombok, including a health clinic.

National disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said more than 220 people suffered serious injuries.

A Malaysian tourist was among the dead, with another six citizens injured, the foreign ministry in Kuala Lumpur has said.

A total of 7,593 people are staying in temporary shelters, according to officials.

The 3,726-metre (12,224-feet) Rinjani is the second-highest volcano in Indonesia and a favourite among sightseers.

Its hiking trails were closed following the quake due to fear of further landslides.

The epicentre of the earthquake was 50 kilometres (30 miles) northeast of Mataram, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.

The initial tremor was followed by two strong secondary quakes and more than 100 aftershocks.

At least 10 dead as strong quake jolts Indonesian island of Lombok

Yahoo – AFP, July 29, 2018

The quake damaged thousands of homes, according to officials (AFP Photo/Handout)

A powerful earthquake on the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok killed at least 10 people, injured dozens and damaged hundreds of homes on Sunday, officials said.

The shallow 6.4-magnitude quake, which jolted the island in the early morning, sent people running outside in panic and triggered landslides on popular mountain hiking routes.

The initial tremor in the north of the island was followed by two strong secondary quakes and more than 100 aftershocks.

"The earthquake killed at least 10 people, some 40 people are injured and hundreds of houses were damaged," said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency.

"We estimate the number will keep rising because we are not done collecting data," Nugroho said.

A 30-year old Malaysian woman was among the dead, he said, adding those hurt were hit by debris.

As authorities scrambled to assess the damage to buildings and infrastructure, popular trekking trails on Mount Rinjani were closed because of landslides, according to the disaster agency.

One local trek organiser described how rocks rained down on two Spanish hikers and their guide as they were caught on a mountain trail.

"My trekking guide who was accompanying two tourists from Spain suffered from minor injuries during the jolt. They were hiking from Segara Anak Lake to Plawangan and rocks were falling on them during the quake," said Karyadi, the owner of a guesthouse near Rinjani where the pair were staying.

"Our guests were in shock because of the incident," said Karyadi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"There have been almost non-stop tremors since this morning," he said.

The epicentre of the earthquake struck 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Lombok's main city Mataram, the United States Geological Survey said, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.

USGS said two of the aftershocks measured more than 5-magnitude.

The strong tremor sent people running in panic from homes and hotels in the 

early morning (AFP Photo/Handout)

The jolt was felt some 100 km (60 miles) away in the bustling holiday island of Bali, although there were no immediate reports of damage there.

"The earthquake was very strong... and everybody in my house panicked, we all ran outside," said Zulkifli, a resident of North Lombok, close to the epicentre.

"All my neighbours also ran outside and the electricity was suddenly cut off," Zulkifli told AFP.

Aftershocks

No tsunami alert was issued, according to Indonesia's geophysics and meteorology agency.

"People in East Lombok and Mataram felt the strong quake for 10 seconds, residents were panicking and running outside of their homes," Nugroho said earlier, adding people had run for open spaces like football fields.

At the holiday island's hotels, tourists raced outside as the quake struck.

At the Katamaran Hotel & Resort in Senggigi beach, some 30 guests gathered in the lobby for around half an hour before venturing back to their rooms.

"They calmed down and returned to their rooms once we explained the earthquake did not trigger a tsunami. Everything is back to normal now," receptionist Ni Nyoman Suwarningsih told AFP.

The quake also rocked the tiny Gili islands off northeast Lombok, which are popular with honeymooners.

"Fortunately there was no panic during the earthquake even though it was quite strong," said Lilis Letisha, receptionist at the Ombak Paradise Hotel on Gili Air island.

Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismic activity hotspot.

It is frequently hit by quakes, most of them harmless. However, the region remains acutely alert to tremors that might trigger tsunamis.

In 2004 a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in western Indonesia killed 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.

Indonesia hosts pre-game festivities in temples across the nation as they prepare for the 2018 Asian Games, a multi-sport event that occurs every four years

Indonesia hosts pre-game festivities in temples across the nation as they prepare for the 2018 Asian Games, a multi-sport event that occurs every four years pic.twitter.com/4GrjNQHD3V

— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 18, 2018

Two Koreas to form joint table tennis team for Korea Open

Yahoo - AFP,15 July 2018

Table tennis players from the two Koreas also formed a joint team at this year's
championships in Sweden

The two Koreas will form joint table tennis teams for the 2018 Korea Open next week, a report said Sunday, the latest sign of thawing ties between the neighbours.

North and South Korea will field joint teams in the men's and women's doubles as well as the mixed doubles in the tournament to be held in the South's city of Daejeon from Tuesday to Sunday, Yonhap news agency said.

It cited an unnamed official at the Korea Table Tennis Association.

South Korean TV footage showed North Korean athletes and delegates arriving at Seoul's Incheon International Airport Sunday via a flight through Beijing.

Eight female and eight male athletes from North Korea -- including Kim Song I, a bronze medalist at women's singles at the 2016 Rio Summer Games -- will form the joint teams with the South's players, Yonhap said.

It will be the third time that table tennis players from the two Koreas form a joint team following the 1991 world championships in Japan and this year's championships in Sweden.

The joint team in 1991 shocked the world by defeating defending champion China to win gold in the women's team event. This year's joint team won bronze in the women's team event in Sweden.

The Korea Table Tennis Association could not be immediately reached for comment.

The two countries are technically still at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice instead of a peace treaty, but sporting cooperation helped spark an ongoing diplomatic thaw after the North agreed to participate in the Winter Olympics held in February in the South.

The diplomatic detente triggered a rapid improvement in relations between Pyongyang and both Seoul and Washington, culminating in last month's summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump in Singapore.

A group of South Korean basketball players visited the North earlier this month to hold friendly basketball matches with its athletes.

The two Koreas also recently announced they would field joint teams in three sports -- canoeing, rowing and women's basketball -- at next month's Asian Games to be held in Indonesia.

Number missing in Indonesia ferry disaster jumps again to 192: official

Yahoo – AFP, Lazuardy Fahmi, June 20, 2018

The wooden boat was believed to be operating illegally, with no manifest or passenger
tickets -- hampering efforts to estimate how many passengers may have been on
board (AFP Photo/JON NST)

Simalungun (Indonesia) (AFP) - As many as 192 passengers could be missing after a ferry sank into the depths of a volcanic lake in Indonesia, the search-and-rescue agency said Wednesday, tripling initial government estimates.

But the agency's head cautioned that it was still unclear how many people were aboard the vessel when it capsized Monday in Lake Toba, a popular tourist destination on Sumatra island.

The traditional wooden boat may have been operating illegally with no manifest or passenger tickets, sparking confusion and a string of changing official passenger estimates.

Indonesia's disaster agency originally said some 80 people along with dozens of motorcycles were on the overloaded, 43-passenger capacity vessel when it overturned and sank.

So far, four bodies have been found and another 18 people rescued, according to the agency.

By Wednesday, the official number of missing had jumped several times to 192 passengers.

Authorities based the figures on reports from families whose missing relatives may have been on the doomed vessel, but their accounts are difficult to verify.

If confirmed, it would be one of Indonesia's deadliest maritime disasters.

"Many people got on the boat without a ticket so it's unclear how many were on board," Muhammad Syaugi, the head of the search and rescue agency, told AFP.

Later at a press conference, Syaugi added: "There are many people who have reported their relatives missing, but whether they were on the boat or not we don't know."

The search has now turned to recovering bodies -- including those that may still be trapped inside the sunken boat.

'Please bring back my son'

"We'll be here until they find my brother's body," said Nurhayati, among hundreds of grief-stricken people waiting by the shore for updates.

"We just want to see his body and take him with us."

Rescue team members prepare to search for missing passengers at the 

Lake Toba ferry port (AFP Photo/IVAN DAMANIK)

Sobbing mother Suwarni pleaded for news of her son and his fiancé, both believed to have been on board.

"Why are the rescue teams so slow?" said the 55-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"I'm so disappointed -- there's no progress here. Please bring back my son."

Authorities have deployed divers and underwater vehicles, along with about 400 personnel, to search the enormous lake in an operation expected to last at least a week.

Lake Toba, popular with international and domestic tourists, fills the crater of a supervolcano that erupted tens of thousands of years ago.

It is one of the world's deepest lakes and extends some 1,145 square kilometres (440 square miles).

The rescue agency has said it plans to search as deep as 400 metres for the sunken vessel.

Images from the scene Wednesday showed rescuers covering up the bloated body of a woman who had washed ashore.

It was not clear if any foreigners were on board the ferry or what caused the disaster.

Survivor accounts said the boat began shaking as it struggled to navigate strong winds and high waves about halfway into the 40-minute trip from an island in the middle of the lake to shore.

Muslim-majority Indonesia has been celebrating the Islamic festival of Eid since Friday and millions go on holiday during the festivities, with Lake Toba among the top destinations.

The deadly disaster came just days after more than a dozen people were killed in an unrelated ferry accident in the Southeast Asian archipelago nation, where many people depend on boats to get around.

Traditional vessels -- like the one in the Lake Toba disaster -- are rarely equipped with enough life preservers and their condition can be dire.

Enforcement of safety standards also tends to be weak, underscoring Indonesia's woeful boat safety record.

In 2015 a ferry sank off the coast of the island of Sulawesi, leaving 78 dead or missing.

More than 300 people are estimated to have drowned in 2009 when a ferry sank between Sulawesi and Borneo.

Map of Indonesia locating the area where a ferry capsized on June 18 pic.twitter.com/k0OR3LfXpx

— AFP news agency (@AFP) June 20, 2018

Two families staged Indonesian suicide bombings: police

Yahoo – AFP, Juni Kriswanto, May 14, 2018

The spate of bombings has rocked Indonesia, with the Islamic State group claiming
the church attacks and raising fears about its influence in Southeast Asia (AFP
Photo/Andy PINARIA)

Surabaya (Indonesia) (AFP) - A family of five, including a child, carried out the suicide bombing of a police headquarters in Indonesia's second city Surabaya on Monday, police said, a day after a deadly wave of attacks on churches staged by another family.

The spate of bombings has rocked Indonesia, with the Islamic State group claiming both the church and police station attacks, raising fears about its influence in Southeast Asia as its dreams of a Middle Eastern caliphate fade.

Indonesia, which is set to host the Asian Games in just three months, has long struggled with Islamist militancy, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200 people -- mostly foreign tourists -- in the country's worst-ever terror attack.

Security forces have arrested hundreds of militants during a sustained crackdown that smashed some networks, and most recent attacks have been low-level and targeted domestic security forces.

But that changed Sunday as a family of six -- including girls aged nine and 12 -- staged suicide bombings of three churches during morning services in Surabaya, killing 18 including the bombers.

On Monday members of another family blew themselves up at a police station in the city, wounding 10.

"There were five people on two motorbikes. One of them was a little kid," national police chief Tito Karnavian said. "This is one family."

Indonesia Surabaya family attacks (AFP Photo/John SAEKI)

An eight-year-old girl from the family survived the attack and was taken to hospital, while her mother, father and two brothers died in the blast, he said.

"A martyrdom-seeking operation with an explosive-laden motorcycle hit the gate of an Indonesian police headquarters," IS's official Amaq agency reported, according to SITE.

The children were likely led to their deaths without a full awareness of their fate, said Ade Banani, of the University of Indonesia’s research centre of police science and terrorism studies.

If a family believed in traditional roles, the father "has the power, so everyone has to obey", Banani said.

"The children probably don't know what's going on or don't understand."

The father of the church suicide bombers was a local leader in extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) which supports IS, and the second family was also linked to JAD.

"It ordered and gave instructions for its cells to make a move," Karnavian said of the Islamic State's role in the church attacks.

He added that the bombings may have also been motivated by the arrest of JAD leaders, including jailed radical Aman Abdurrahman, and were linked to a deadly prison riot staged by Islamist prisoners at a high-security jail near Jakarta last week.

Abdurrahman has been connected to several deadly incidents, including a 2016 gun and suicide attack in the capital Jakarta that left four attackers and four civilians dead.

Despite their apparent allegiance to IS, the church-bombing family were not returnees from Syria, police said Monday, correcting their earlier statements.

However, hundreds of Indonesians have flocked in recent years to fight alongside IS there.

Its ambitions have been reined in after losing most of the land it once occupied in Iraq and Syria, and there are concerns that jihadists will now turn their focus on establishing a base in Southeast Asia.

Indonesian police have foiled numerous terror plots, but the coordinated nature of

 the church bombings and subsequent blasts point to more sophisticated planning 

than in the past, analysts said (AFP Photo/JUNI KRISWANTO)

'Increasingly proficient'

On Sunday evening, just hours after the church bombings, a further three people in another family were killed and two wounded when another bomb exploded at an apartment complex about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Surabaya.

That explosion appeared to have been an accidental detonation that killed a mother and her 17-year-old child who was not identified.

The woman's husband -- a confidante of the husband behind the church bombings, Dita Oepriyanto -- was badly injured in the explosion.

Police said they arrived after the explosion and shot dead the injured man, Anton Febrianto, as he held a bomb detonator in his hand.

"When we searched the flat we found pipe bombs, similar to pipe bombs we found near the churches," said Karnavian.

Police said they also shot dead four suspects,including the second-ranking member of the JAD cell in Surabaya, in raids on houses and offices Monday while nine others were arrested.

Indonesian police have foiled numerous terror plots, but the coordinated nature of Sunday's church bombings and the subsequent blasts point to more sophisticated planning than in the past, analysts said.

"There is definitely a growing technical proficiency," said Zachary Abuza, Southeast Asian security expert at the National War College in Washington.

"To pull off three near-simultaneous bombings is the hallmark of a group that is thinking."

Abuza questioned the police suggestion that the attacks were ordered by the IS leadership abroad, but said it would likely boost its presence in Southeast Asia as it fades elsewhere.

"(They're) going to continue to benefit from operating transnationally in Southeast Asia," he said.

#UPDATE A family of five, including a child, carried out the suicide bombing of a police headquarters in Indonesia's second city #Surabaya, police say, a day after a deadly wave of attacks on churches staged by another family https://t.co/K7zyQmf76f

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 14, 2018

Deadly Indonesia church suicide bombings committed by one family

Yahoo – AFP, Juni Kriswanto, May 13, 2018

Indonesia has been on high alert over attacks by militants (AFP Photo/
JUNI KRISWANTO)

A family of six including two young daughters staged suicide bombings at three Indonesian churches during Sunday services, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens in attacks claimed by the Islamic State group.

The bombings at three churches in Surabaya were Indonesia's deadliest for years, as the world's biggest Muslim-majority country grapples with homegrown militancy and rising intolerance towards religious minorities.

A further three people were killed and two wounded when another bomb exploded at an apartment complex in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city, just hours later, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The church bombers -- a mother and father, two daughters aged nine and 12, and two sons aged 16 and 18 -- were linked to local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) which supports IS, said national police chief Tito Karnavian.

Local media reports say they may have returned from Syria, where hundreds of Indonesians have flocked in recent years to fight alongside IS in its bid to carve out a caliphate ruled by strict Islamic law.

The mother, identified as Puji Kuswati, and her two daughters were wearing niqab face veils and had bombs strapped to their waists as they entered the grounds of the Kristen Indonesia Diponegoro Church and blew themselves up, Karnavian said.

The father, JAD cell leader Dita Priyanto, drove a bomb-laden car into the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church while his sons rode motorcycles into Santa Maria church, where they detonated explosives they were carrying, Karnavian said.

"All were suicide attacks but the types of bombs are different," he said of the church attacks.

Police and soldiers examine a site following attacks outside the Surabaya 

Centre Pentecostal Church (AFP Photo/JUNI KRISWANTO)

Coordinated attacks

The group, led by jailed radical Aman Abdurrahman, has been linked to several deadly incidents, including a 2016 gun and suicide attack in the capital Jakarta that left four attackers and four civilians dead.

That was the first assault claimed by IS in Southeast Asia.

Police on Sunday said four suspected JAD members were killed in a shootout during raids linked to a deadly prison riot this week.

Five members of Indonesia's elite anti-terrorism squad and a prisoner were killed in clashes that saw Islamist inmates take a guard hostage at a high-security jail on the outskirts of Jakarta. IS claimed responsibility.

Karnavian said Sunday's church attacks may have been revenge for the arrest of some of JAD's leaders and for the prison crisis which eventually saw the surrender of the radical inmates.

The Pope offered support over "the severe attack against places of worship", while President Joko Widodo called for Indonesians to "unite against terrorism".

"The state will not tolerate this act of cowardice," he told reporters in Surabaya.

East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera confirmed the deaths of 13 people in the church bombings, with about 40 injured in the coordinated attacks at around 7:30 am (0030 GMT).

Images showed a vehicle engulfed in flames and plumes of thick black smoke as a body lay outside the gate of Santa Maria Catholic church, with motorcycles toppled over amid the mangled debris.

In addition to the suicide blast police experts defused two unexploded bombs at the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.

Later on Sunday night a bomb killed three people and wounded two, all from the same family, who occupied the fifth floor of a low-cost Surabaya apartment complex, East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera said.

"Three people have died, two are in the hospital and one is safe," he told AFP via Whatsapp.

Police with dogs examine a site following attacks outside the Surabaya Centre 

Pentecostal Church (AFP Photo/JUNI KRISWANTO)

The explosion hit the apartment complex about 9 pm, local media reported, and residents were evacuated from the building after the blast.

Yono, tenant coordinator at the apartment block, said the family had lived there since 2015.

'Professional' attacks

Concerns about sectarian intolerance in Indonesia have been on the rise, with churches targeted in the past.

Nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 260 million people are Muslim, but there are significant numbers of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.

Police shot and wounded an IS-inspired radical who attacked a church congregation outside Indonesia's cultural capital Yogyakarta with a sword during a Sunday mass in February. Four people were injured.

In 2000 bombs disguised as Christmas gifts and delivered to churches and clergymen killed 19 people on Christmas Eve and injured scores more across the country.

The archipelago nation of some 17,000 islands has long struggled with Islamic militancy, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people -- mostly foreign tourists -- in the country's worst-ever terror attack.

Sunday's bombings had the highest death toll since nine people were killed in 2009 attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta.

Security forces have arrested hundreds of militants during a sustained crackdown in recent years that smashed some networks, and most recent attacks have been low-level and targeted domestic security forces.

But the coordinated nature of Sunday's bombings suggested a higher level of planning, analysts said.

"Recent (previous) attacks have been far less 'professional'," Sidney Jones, an expert on Southeast Asian terrorism and director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, told AFP.

Police hostage crisis at Indonesia jail over: officials

Yahoo – AFP, 10 May 2018

The raid secured the release of the police hostage and no further casualties were reported

A hostage crisis involving Islamist prisoners at a high-security jail outside Jakarta has been resolved nearly two days after a deadly riot broke out at the prison, Indonesian officials said Thursday.

Hundreds of police and armoured vehicles were deployed to rescue a police officer taken hostage by inmates after chaos erupted late Tuesday at the facility inside the Mobile Police Brigade headquarters in Depok, leaving five officers and an inmate dead.

In the pre-dawn operation, 145 prisoners "surrendered unconditionally" and the hostage was released with no further casualties reported, said Chief Security Minister Wiranto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Another ten inmates holding out against police later surrendered after tear gas was used, according to Wiranto.

Several blasts heard near the prison on Thursday morning were caused by police destroying home-made bombs created by the prisoners, police said.

Rioting broke out after several prisoners demanded they be given food sent to them by their families and managed to grab some of their jailers' firearms in the ensuing fracas.

Some of the inmates involved in the clashes were Islamist militants jailed on terror-related charges, according to police.

Five officers and an inmate were killed in the deadly riot

The Islamic State group was quick to claim responsibility for the riot through its Amaq News Agency, but authorities rejected that claim.

Among the facility's prisoners is Aman Abdurrahman, an Islamic radical jailed for orchestrating an attack in Jakarta in 2016 that left eight people dead.

Former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who was jailed for two years for blasphemy after losing a re-election bid, is also held in the jail.

Abdurrahman and Purnama, better known as Ahok, are not housed in the part of the prison where the riot broke out.

Indonesia's overcrowded prisons are notorious for their poor conditions and outbreaks of violence.

Two years ago, nearly 500 inmates broke out from a prison after complaining about overcrowding and extortion.

Hostage crisis at Indonesian high-security jail finally over 2 days after riot killed 5 policemen and inmates took 1 officer captive https://t.co/tcWCWfTKKc pic.twitter.com/oR5yzjc2Li

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 10, 2018

Malaysia's Mahathir wins shock election victory, toppling 61-yr-old regime

Yahoo – AFP, Martin Abbugao, May 9, 2018

As it became clear that Mahathir had won, supporters took to the streets
waving flags of the opposition alliance (AFP Photo/Mohd RASFAN)

Malaysia's veteran ex-leader Mahathir Mohamad, 92, won a shock election victory Thursday, in a political earthquake that toppled the country's scandal-plagued premier and ousted a regime that has ruled for over six decades.

It was a stunning triumph that almost no one had predicted and ended the long hold on power of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which has ruled Malaysia since its birth as an independent country.

The victory capped a dramatic political comeback for Mahathir, who previously ruled the country with an iron fist for 22 years, and came out of retirement to taken on Prime Minister Najib Razak after the leader became embroiled in a massive corruption scandal.

When he takes power, Mahathir will be the oldest prime minister in the world.

His victory spells big trouble for Najib -- Mahathir has vowed to bring him to justice over allegations that billions of dollars were looted from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, which the scandal-plagued leader set up and oversaw.

But at a press conference, Mahathir vowed: "We are not seeking revenge. We want to restore the rule of law."

Mahathir's return to the political frontlines saw him throw in his lot with an opposition alliance filled with parties that he crushed while in power, and which includes jailed opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim -- his former nemesis.

When he takes power, Mahathir Mohamad, 92, will be the oldest prime minister

in the world (AFP Photo/Manan VATSYAYANA)

As well as seizing control of the national government, several state legislatures across the country fell into opposition hands for the first time, including the highly symbolic bastion of Johor, the birthplace of Najib's party that was the lynchpin of the ruling coalition.

Official results from the Election Commission showed that Mahathir's opposition grouping Pakatan Harapan, along with an ally in the Borneo state of Sabah, had secured 115 parliamentary seats. 112 are needed to form a government. BN were on 79 seats with just a few left to count.

As it became clear that Mahathir had won, supporters took to the streets waving flags of the opposition alliance.

After polls closed earlier in the day, journalists had flocked to the headquarters of Najib's United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the lynchpin in the ruling coalition -- but he failed to turn up to give a victory speech and the media were told to leave.

Huge numbers of voters earlier flocked to the polls across the country, despite Najib having called the election on a weekday in what critics said was a bid to keep turnout down.

The BN wipeout is a disaster for Najib, who had been under pressure to score an emphatic win after the government lost the popular vote for the first time at the last elections in 2013.

The controversy surrounding 1MDB has dogged Najib since the story exploded in 2015. Billions of dollars were allegedly stolen from the fund, which was set up and overseen by Najib. The leader and 1MDB deny any wrongdoing.

But in rural areas, the rising cost of living, which has hit poor Malays hard, was the main concern at the election particularly after the introduction of an unpopular sales tax in 2015.

#UPDATE Malaysia's Mahathir wins shock election victory, toppling 61-yr-old regime https://t.co/vijr5oPJud pic.twitter.com/XTDogeLUl7

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 9, 2018

VIDEO: 92-year-old former leader Mahathir is challenging the current scandal-hit Malaysian PM Najib - and it’s turning out to be one of the country’s closest-ever elections https://t.co/7qnKdpyjAP pic.twitter.com/X5NN4QFD9N

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 9, 2018