A defence expert dismisses as unfounded fears that docking two naval submarines in Kota Kinabalu will expose the city to external attack.
PETALING JAYA: Fears of an attack on Kota Kinabalu (KK) if there is a military strike on the nearby Sepangar Bay Naval Base are ridiculous, says a defence expert.
Dzirhan Mahadzir, a correspondent for military-based publication Jane’s Defence Weekly (JDW), said that Sepangar was far away from KK to pose a danger to locals.
“It sounds like scare-mongering to me. Sepangar is quite well away from the town itself. Frankly speaking, it’s quite a distance from KK,” he told FMT today.
(Sepangar Bay is located 20km to the north of the city centre.)
Dzirhan also said that if a foreign power wanted to attack the Sepangar base, it would go for a direct strike, instead of laying to waste nearby KK.
“When you fire a missle, it would just hit the target. You’re not going to bomb everything within a 100km radius,” he said.
FMT reported that KK citizens and historians were alarmed by the government’s decision to park two of its submarines at Sepangar.
They argued that such a move would endanger local Sabahans given its proximity to the nearby disputed Spratly Islands.
Disputed area
The Spratlys are a group of oil-and-gas-rich islands located more than 500km north of Sabah. Consisting of more than 750 islands, they are contested by Vietnam, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia.
Dzirhan also said that the concern over the submarines was not something he would take too seriously, adding that China’s airspace was well out of Malaysia’s reach.
“If that’s the case, where do you want to park the submarines? You might as well ask the Ministry of Defence to move out of KL,” he said sarcastically.
The JDW correspondent also said that a foreign army would not attack KK to deny supplies to Sepangar.
“The base doesn’t depend on the town. All military bases have their own emergency supplies as a precaution,” he said.
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