A Malaysian government crackdown under its Sedition Act is creating a climate of fear in the country, according to rising numbers of critics who say it could stunt a recent flowering in freedom of speech. 

About 40 people -- mostly opposition politicians including leader Anwar Ibrahim, but also student activists, lawyers, academics and a journalist -- have been investigated, charged or convicted under the act this year, activists say.

Malaysia's defense minister has labelled efforts by a U.S.-led coalition to push back the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria "ineffective", and called for regional cooperation to prevent jihadists gaining a foothold in Southeast Asia.

"Air strikes by the United States and its allies (against IS in Syria and Iraq) appear to be ineffective for now. So, we need to consider our own approach," Hishammuddin Hussein was quoted as saying in The Star newspaper.

Malaysian police have arrested 13 people believed to have "links" with the Islamic State, a report said Wednesday, as concern grows over the extremist group's appeal in the moderate Muslim country.

The Star newspaper quoted national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar as saying the 13 Malaysians were arrested in a raid on a restaurant in a Kuala Lumpur suburb.

Thai authorities on Saturday arrested 53 Rohingya migrants and two suspected Thai traffickers en route to neighboring Malaysia, an official said.

The migrants were found on a rubber plantation in Takua Pa district in the southern coastal province of Phang Nga, district chief Manit Phianthong told Agence France Presse.

Fourteen people were wounded early Thursday when a suspected hand grenade exploded in a tourist section of Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, police said.

One of the injured was hurt seriously in the pre-dawn explosion outside a pub in Bukit Bintang, a popular area for shopping, dining and nightlife.

The hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 entered a new phase Monday with the resumption of the underwater search for the aircraft, officials said.

Until now experts had been concentrating on mapping the seabed in the southern Indian Ocean search zone where the plane carrying 239 people is thought to have crashed in March.

A Malaysian human rights group called on the government Sunday not to forcibly deport 155 Chinese ethnic Uighurs reported to be in the country illegally, amid concerns for their fate in China.

Malaysian media reported Friday that the Uighurs, including 76 children, were found in a pair of cramped apartments in the capital Kuala Lumpur in a raid two days earlier by immigration authorities.

The Islamic State group's jihadist appeal is fanning fears that it could serve as a potent new rallying cry for Southeast Asian extremists who had been largely brought to heel following past deadly terror attacks.

Authorities in Indonesia -- the world's most populous Islamic country -- and Muslim-majority Malaysia have watched with alarm as scores, possibly even hundreds, of their nationals are believed to have gone to Syria and Iraq to join the fight for a hardline Muslim caliphate.

The difficult process of disarming Philippine Muslim rebels after a decades-long insurgency has started, negotiators said Sunday, with the decommissioning of a first batch of firearms expected before year-end.

Philippine government and Muslim rebel negotiators started meeting in Malaysia on Saturday to discuss the disarmament process, key to ending the insurgency in the country's south and sealing a peace deal.

Malaysia's transgender population faces systematic repression, harassment and mistreatment, and the government must immediately repeal laws that criminalize their lifestyles, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

The U.S.-based group released a report it says details worsening abuses that transgender people face in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation.