To reinforce his point, Sukarno had ordered that a force of Indonesian troops and exiled Malaysian-Chinese land in mainland Malaysia to kick off a campaign of such invasions to create guerrilla bases in enemy territory and stir up Communist sympathizers.

Though this was a risky move, it had a chance of capitalizing upon recent unrest in Malaya and Singapore by putting Indonesian soldiers and sympathizers inside Malaysian territory, where they could attempt to raise the populace against a very new government to whom they owed little loyalty.

[2] Their mission was twofold: the Indonesians were to establish a guerrilla base and begin to recruit and train locals in that style of warfare, whilst the others would commit acts of sabotage and carry out assassinations.

The local populace proved extremely unreceptive to the Indonesian incursion, and before they could begin to set up any sort of toehold and provisional government, Malaysian security forces began to arrive on the scene.

The Senoi Praaq would be instrumental in this process, proving adept at catching Indonesian intruders while they broke cover to obtain food from Malaysian villagers, as well as following their tracks through the jungle.

The Malaysian government was infuriated, and accused the Indonesians of "blatant aggression," threatening to strike (through Britain) at their bases in Sumatra, simultaneously putting immense pressure on London to act.

[4] Though Sukarno had suffered a minor defeat, he had still managed to put the British in an extremely awkward position: if they did not retaliate, they would be seen to have lost face and to lack enough resolve to risk escalating the crisis.

Though the raid was a catastrophic failure, with one of the transport planes crashing en route, and the remainder of the troops arriving scattered with little food and battered morale, the move further infuriated the Malaysians, who in turn put pressure upon the British to act.