Career
During World World War II, he supported the Japanese during their occupation of Malaya. Imprisoned by the British, he was freed by the Japanese in February 1942, only to be recaptured by British forces in Singapore later that same year. He died in Jakarta on 8 March 1979.
Yaacob was born in Temerloh, Pahang, to a family of Bugis descent.
During the 1930s, he wrote a series of articles that were critical of the British Administration to the Malay newspapers, and was later forced to resign after receiving a warning from the British authorities. He became the editor of a nationalistic newspaper, Majlis, and formed the KMM in 1938.