KUALA LUMPUR — The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group is in an “aggressive mode” in reaching out to Malay-speaking communities by making reading materials in the Malay language more accessible online, a move that could have wide-ranging ramifications for countries in South-east Asia.
The Malaysian authorities say ISIS is spreading its propaganda through more “localised news reports” and “articles” that glorify its fighters, especially those from Malaysia and Indonesia who have travelled to Syria to take up arms with the militant group.
These “articles” are uploaded on ISIS websites in Malay, which also share information on ISIS activities in the provinces they conquered.
One of the websites is a portal containing articles taken from the ISIS magazine Dabiq, which are then translated into Bahasa Indonesia and Malay.
Online recruiters in Malaysia and Indonesia also use forums and blogs to reach out to potential recruits.
Malaysia’s top counter-terrorism official, Mr Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, said the ISIS recruiters would include articles on martyrdom and life in the organisation.
“They feed their sympathisers with fairy tales,” said Mr Ayob.
It is understood that there are currently about six to seven ISIS websites, forums and blogs in Malay.
Mr Ayob said these websites use servers abroad to avoid detection from the authorities in both countries.
The ISIS social-media unit has also taken the initiative to include Malay subtitles in its radio programmes broadcast in English and Arabic through ISIS’ official radio station, Bayan, which was made available on YouTube three months ago.
A check on YouTube, which provides access to recorded ISIS radio programmes, showed that Bayan attracts between 700 and 2,000 visitors.
International Islamic University Malaysia’s Political Science and Islamic Studies lecturer Ahmad Muhammady said the emergence of ISIS websites in Malay indicates an “offensive approach” taken by the terror group.
“Before this, they took a ‘defensive approach’, that is to respond to the accusations made against them, and it was done either in Arabic, English or Indonesian. Now, they changed tact,” Mr Ahmad said.
“To me, it is not surprising. Currently, the term ‘jihad media’ (ilami jihadi) is getting popular among the pro-ISIS chatters. This term is coined … to encourage young people to join the ISIS media team to take an offensive approach against their ‘enemies’.”
Last month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told a regional security forum in Singapore that South-east Asia is a key recruitment centre for ISIS.
“ISIS has so many Indonesian and Malaysian fighters that they form them into a unit by themselves — the Katibah Nusantara (Malay Archipelago Combat Unit),” said Mr Lee, who also warned that ISIS could establish a base somewhere in the region and pose a “serious threat to the whole of South-east Asia”.
His remarks followed the recent arrests of two self-radicalised Singaporean youths, including M Arifil Azim Putra Norja’i, 19, who had planned intensively to attack key facilities and assassinate government leaders if he was unable to leave Singapore for Syria.
Mr Ahmad said ISIS’ use of Malay-language materials as a recruitment tool was a worrying development for Malaysia. “Currently, there is an increase in interest among youths in rural areas in the east coast, especially among secondary and college students,” he said.
He said the use of Malay as the medium was all about penetrating deeper into Malaysian society.
“Those who are not educated in English still rely on the Malay website as a source of reference.”
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said so far, no ISIS websites in Malay have been shut down.
Its monitoring and enforcement division head Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said MCMC was aware of the emergence of the ISIS sites.
“So far, we have not blocked any such website, but we did take down a few videos on YouTube,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
Source: www.todayonline.com
