155 Chinese Uygur immigrants detained in Malaysia to investigate links to Islamic State

Malaysia has detained 155 Uygur immigrants from China's volatile Muslim-majority Xinjiang province as part of its attempts to beef-up efforts to prevent militants from joining the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Syria and Iraq, official media reported on Friday.

Those detained included 76 children, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported quoting Malaysian media reports. The Uygur migrants were reportedly found in a raid conducted on two apartment units in Taman Bukit Jalil in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

Kuala Lumpur Immigration Department enforcement operations unit chief Basri Hassan said that 65 of the illegal immigrants, including 32 children, were crammed into one apartment unit, while the other 90, including 44 children, were found in the second unit.

The immigrants are now being detained for further investigation. Malaysia has tightened security at all immigration checkpoints following four Chinese Uygur militants linked to the Islamic State group had transited in Malaysia before being arrested in Indonesia, the report said. 

Turkik speaking Uygurs are the 11 million strong native Muslim community in Xinjiang, which is restive for several years following the Uygur protests over the increasing settlements of Hans. The province has witnessed stepped up attacks allegedly by the al-Qaeda linked East Turkistan Islamic Movement. 

China has said in the recent past that a number of ETIM militants from Xinjiang joined IS which controlled swathe of territory in Syria and Iraq.