updated version

Thousands of people have been arrested and hundreds of homes destroyed in an increasingly aggressive crackdown on illegal immigrants.

On the first day of a drive targeting 30,000 migrants in Sabah, police and army troops arrested more than 2,500 people and demolished 227 squatter homes, a police spokesman said today.

Those arrested in the operation on Tuesday, mostly Filipinos and Indonesians, were being held in detention camps and would be deported as soon as possible, the spokesman told AFP .

"We will send them back, but it's not the end. Operations will be ongoing indefinitely.

"When we stop depends on how fast we can flush them out," he said.

The massive clampdown followed the government's announcement last month that it planned to swiftly deport 30,000 illegals from the state.

The action in Sabah is in line with a tougher approach throughout Malaysia, which is home to 750,000 legal foreign workers and hundreds of thousands of mainly-Indonesian illegal immigrants.

The government, which has said it aims to deport about 10,000 Indonesian illegal immigrants every month, in January launched an offensive against the migrants, with almost daily arrests.

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Police have said that 4,531 illegal Indonesian immigrants were arrested in January and most had already been deported.

Newspapers carry almost daily reports of squatter homes, mostly housing Indonesians, being demolished, particularly in industrial areas around the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia's increasing intolerance of illegal immigrants was also turned against legal workers from Indonesia after two riots in January by textile and construction workers.

The government announced that Indonesians, who now make up 566,983 out of a total of 769,566 legal foreign workers in the country, would be hired in future only as domestic helpers and plantation workers.

The authorities said at the end of January Malaysia would step up patrols against a feared rush of illegal immigrants after the cutback on hiring new Indonesian workers.

Zero landings

Marine police chief Muhamad Muda said nearly 300 men and more than 40 boats had been deployed to turn away Indonesians who attempt to enter Malaysia via the Malacca Straits which separates the two countries.

"Our orders are for zero landings on our beaches by illegals," he said.