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Tag: Iraq

  • Challenge Lies In Fighting IS Ideology, Not Group

    Challenge Lies In Fighting IS Ideology, Not Group

    KUALA LUMPUR — The threat of the Islamic State looms large over Malaysia, where the authorities have arrested dozens of suspected militants and uncovered several terror plots planned in the name of the militant group in recent months.

    Those detained come from all walks of life, making it extremely challenging, if not impossible, for the authorities to profile suspects and pre-empt attacks.

    The country’s top counterterrorism official Ayub Khan said the challenge of dealing with the Islamic State is having to fight ideology rather than an organisation. “(The Islamic State’s) doors are open to anybody … We have our work cut out for us as we are monitoring not just organisations or groups, but also individuals,” he said.

    In the most recent case, six suspected militants were charged last week — the youngest being a 17-year-old. The six were part of a group of 12 who were arrested near Kuala Lumpur last month for plans to attack Putrajaya, the federal parliament and entertainment venues with explosives.

    The police also detained one of the youngest Malaysians who wanted to join the group in February — a 14-year-old girl who planned to marry a man, 22, in Egypt before heading to Syria to join the militant cause.

    Since April 2013, Malaysia has arrested 107 for suspected militant activities. They include military personnel, civil servants and university students, among others — a worrying sign that even people who serve the nation are buying into the group’s ideology. Two men from the Royal Malaysian Air Force were charged last month along with four other suspected militants for plotting to kidnap high-profile figures, rob banks and raid armed-forces installations.

    Malaysia passed the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act Bill last month, giving the police sweeping powers to arrest and detain those suspected of terrorist activities.

    Last August, the police arrested 19 who had formulated plans to bomb pubs and a Malaysian brewery managed by Carlsberg. These were targeted reportedly because Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol.

    A group of radicals arrested last year were planning to attack several targets in Malaysia and had their sights set on a wider campaign — the creation of an Islamic caliphate that includes Singapore, said the counterterrorism division.

    The Islamic State has been adept at spreading its propaganda on social media, making it difficult for authorities to distinguish when pre-emptive action should be taken.

    “We don’t go after these sympathisers as there is no evidence to show they are involved,” Mr Ayub said, but added that the counterterrorism division is taking all possible measures for intelligence gathering and making arrests. Officers are also sent to engage the people by giving talks at schools.

    When asked if Singapore and Malaysia are on high alert for attacks, Mr Ayub replied: “The IS threat is a global problem. We are working with other countries through the exchange of information and intelligence.”

    Of the 200 Malaysians who were fighting in Iraq and Syria, some have died as suicide bombers and others in combat.

    Indonesia faces a similar growing threat from the Islamic State and launched a six-month operation in April to crack down on militants with suspected links to the group. The authorities believe about 500 Indonesians have joined the group in Syria and Iraq. AGENCIES

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Security Guard Jailed For Making Facebook Posts Inciting Religious Violence

    Security Guard Jailed For Making Facebook Posts Inciting Religious Violence

    A 28-year-old security guard has been jailed for three months after making Facebook posts inciting readers to religious violence.

    Muhammad Shamin Mohamed Sidek made the two posts on Nov 29 last year after reading a news report of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a dialogue on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

    Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Wen Hsien said that Shamin’s posts used “graphic and evocative language” which “further encourages violence along… religious fault lines”.

    She added that the reach of the accused’s words had been magnified by the accessibility of his Facebook platform.

    In mitigation, Shamin said he had deactivated his Facebook account the same day after leaving police custody, and that the posts had been those of  “a simple layman… venting in frustration”.

    District Judge Shawn Ho called the accused’s posts a “grim reminder of how offenders can use technology to stoke the flames of violence… particularly given the current international, regional and domestic security climate”.

    “It is infinitely better to prevent a breakdown in law, order and safety than to deal with an aftermath when untold and often irreparable damage has been done,” he said.

    Shamin was also convicted of possessing contraband cigarettes, which were discovered during a police raid on his Tampines flat.

    He admitted purchasing the 40 packs of Marlboro cigarettes knowing that their duties had not been paid. For this, he received a fine of $3,200, or 16 days’ jail if he defaults.

    For making a document or electronic record containing an incitement to violence, he could have been jailed for up to five years, fined or both.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • Westerners Join Iraqi Christian Militia To Fight Against IS

    Westerners Join Iraqi Christian Militia To Fight Against IS

    DUHOK, Iraq (Reuters) – Saint Michael, the archangel of battle, is tattooed across the back of a U.S. army veteran who recently returned to Iraq and joined a Christian militia fighting Islamic State in what he sees as a biblical war between good and evil.

    Brett, 28, carries the same thumb-worn pocket Bible he did whilst deployed to Iraq in 2006 – a picture of the Virgin Mary tucked inside its pages and his favourite verses highlighted.

    “It’s very different,” he said, asked how the experiences compared. “Here I’m fighting for a people and for a faith, and the enemy is much bigger and more brutal.”

    Thousands of foreigners have flocked to Iraq and Syria in the past two years, mostly to join Islamic State, but a handful of idealistic Westerners are enlisting as well, citing frustration their governments are not doing more to combat the ultra-radical Islamists or prevent the suffering of innocents.

    The militia they joined is called Dwekh Nawsha – meaning self-sacrifice in the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Christ and still used by Assyrian Christians, who consider themselves the indigenous people of Iraq.

    A map on the wall in the office of the Assyrian political party affiliated with Dwekh Nawsha marks the Christian towns in northern Iraq, fanning out around the city of Mosul.

    The majority are now under control of Islamic State, which overran Mosul last summer and issued am ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword. Most fled.

    Dwekh Nawsha operates alongside Kurdish peshmerga forces to protect Christian villages on the frontline in Nineveh province.

    “These are some of the only towns in Nineveh where church bells ring. In every other town the bells have gone silent, and that’s unacceptable,” said Brett, who has “The King of Nineveh” written in Arabic on the front of his army vest.

    Brett, who like other foreign volunteers withheld his last name out of concern for his family’s safety, is the only one to have engaged in fighting so far.

    The others, who arrived just last week, were turned back from the frontline on Friday by Kurdish security services who said they needed official authorisation.

    “STOP SOME ATROCITIES”

    Tim shut down his construction business in Britain last year, sold his house and bought two plane tickets to Iraq: one for himself and another for a 44-year-old American software engineer he met through the internet.

    The men joined up at Dubai airport, flew to the Kurdish city of Suleimaniyah and took a taxi to Duhok, where they arrived last week.

    “I’m here to make a difference and hopefully put a stop to some atrocities,” said 38-year-old Tim, who previously worked in the prison service. “I’m just an average guy from England really.”

    Scott, the software engineer, served in the U.S. Army in the 1990s, but lately spent most of his time in front of a computer screen in North Carolina.

    He was mesmerised by images of Islamic State militants hounding Iraq’s Yazidi minority and became fixated on the struggle for the Syrian border town of Kobani — the target of a relentless campaign by the jihadists, who were held off by the lightly armed Kurdish YPG militia, backed by U.S. air strikes.

    Scott had planned to join the YPG, which has drawn a flurry of foreign recruits, but changed his mind four days before heading to the Middle East after growing suspicious of the group’s ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

    He and the other volunteers worried they would not be allowed home if they were associated with the PKK, which the United States and Europe consider a terrorist organisation. They also said they disliked the group’s leftist ideology.

    The only foreign woman in Dwekh Nawsha’s ranks said she had been inspired by the role of women in the YPG, but identified more closely with the “traditional” values of the Christian militia.

    Wearing a baseball cap over her balaclava, she said radical Islam was at the root of many conflicts and had to be contained.

    All the volunteers said they were prepared to stay in Iraq indefinitely.

    “Everyone dies,” said Brett, asked about the prospect of being killed. “One of my favourite verses in the Bible says: be faithful unto death, and I shall give you the crown of life.”

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

  • Former Islamic State Commandant Arrested In Kuala Lumpur

    Former Islamic State Commandant Arrested In Kuala Lumpur

    KUALA LUMPUR – A 45-year-old former commandant of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), on the most-wanted list in the Middle East, was detained by the Malaysian Police Counter Terrorism unit in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 31.

    The suspect, who had been part of the terrorist group operating in Syria from May 2012 to May 2014, was deported to his country of origin yesterday (Feb 6) after five days in detention for allegedly using a fake passport.

    Police, who seized a large amount of money from the suspect, have yet to release more details of the operation, saying keeping the identity of the suspect under wraps is vital until the entire operation is completed.

    The arrest was a result of cooperation between Malaysian police and other foreign countries that have vouched to tackle the terror group from widening its influence abroad.

    Intelligence sources said the man from the Middle East who arrived in mid-January was detained at a four-star hotel near Bukit Bintang.

    Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar in a statement today (Feb 7) confirmed the arrest, but did not link the terrorist to any group.

    It is understood that the suspect had travelled to several countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South-east Asia before slipping into Malaysia.

    “The Royal Malaysian Police takes a serious view of the activities of foreign terrorists attempting to use Malaysia as a transit, safe haven and base of operations.

    “The success in the suspect’s arrest is the result of close cooperation between the police and foreign enforcement agencies. This cooperation will continue to eradicate and manage the threat of terrorism, be it regionally or globally,” Mr Khalid said.

    About 59 Malaysians are officially known to have joined ISIS.

    More than 65 have been arrested by police either on their way to Syria and Iraq or on their way back since the start of last year.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • IS Militants Selling Abducted Iraqi Children As Sex Slaves And Crucifying Or Burying Others Alive

    IS Militants Selling Abducted Iraqi Children As Sex Slaves And Crucifying Or Burying Others Alive

    Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are selling abducted Iraqi children at markets as sex slaves, and killing other youth, including by crucifixion or burying them alive, a United Nations watchdog said on Wednesday.

    Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

    “We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

    Children from the Yazidi sect or Christian communities, but also Shi’ites and Sunnis, have been victims, she said.

    “We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Winter told Reuters. “There was a video placed (online) that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.”

    Islamic State is a breakaway al Qaeda group that declared an Islamic caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq last summer. It has killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, in what the United Nations has called a reign of terror.

    On Tuesday, the group, which is also known as ISIL, released a video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive.

    The U.N. body, which reviewed Iraq’s record for the first time since 1998, denounced “the systematic killing of children belonging to religious and ethnic minorities by the so-called ISIL, including several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive”.

    A large number of children have been killed or badly wounded during air strikes or shelling by Iraqi security forces, while others had died of “dehydration, starvation and heat”, it said.

    ISIL has committed “systematic sexual violence”, including “the abduction and sexual enslavement of children”, it said.

    “Children of minorities have been captured in many places… sold in the market place with tags, price tags on them, they have been sold as slaves,” Winter said, giving no details.

    The 18 independent experts who worked on the report called on Iraqi authorities to take all necessary measures to “rescue children” under the control of Islamic State and to prosecute perpetrators of crimes.

    “There is a duty of a state to protect all its children. The point is just how are they going to do that in such a situation?”, Winter said.

     

    Source: http://english.alarabiya.net