Rilek1Corner

Tag: ISIS

  • Malaysian Police Arrest 12 Linked To ISIS, Foils Attempt To Attack Government Buildings

    Malaysian Police Arrest 12 Linked To ISIS, Foils Attempt To Attack Government Buildings

    Police have foiled an attempt to attack government buildings in the Klang Valley after 12 people linked to the militant Islamic State (Isis) group were arrested, said Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar.

    Khalid said police also seized explosive materials and items likely to be used in bomb-making.

    “The 12 were arrested in the Hulu Langat area, in Cheras in Kuala Lumpur, and in Selangor yesterday and today, ” Khalid said in a statement.

    He said the group was planning attacks on several strategic locations in the Klang Valley, in a bid to avenge police clampdown on Isis sympathisers.

    The youngest among them was a 17-year-old. The others included a school dropout, a university student, a businessman and a wireman.

    The arrests, under anti-terrorism provisions in the Penal Code, were made yesterday and today by the counter-terrorism unit of the police’s Special Branch.

    The targets, according to police intelligence, were “strategic and important” government buildings, Khalid said.

    An Isis flag among bomb-making items which the police say it seized from the 12 suspects. – PDRM pic, April 26, 2015.An Isis flag among bomb-making items which the police say it seized from the 12 suspects. – PDRM pic, April 26, 2015.Among the explosive materials seized were 20kg of a powder suspected to be ammonium nitrate, 20kg of potassium nitrate, two litres of kerosene, two remote controls, batteries, digital weighing machines and other items believed to be “ingredients” and tools in bomb-making.

    Khalid said the planned attacks were in response to a call by a senior Isis leader in Syria to the group’s members and sympathisers to launch attacks against the interests of “secular Islamic countries” which the group deems as its enemies.

    The planned attacks were also meant as retaliation against the Malaysian police for the arrests of suspected Isis members and sympathisers, and those detained on suspicion of terrorism, he added.

    Khalid’s statement this evening follows his announcement on Twitter earlier today on the arrests and seizure of explosives.

    “12 people in Ulu Langat/KL were planning to create chaos in the country. Explosives were seized,” he had tweeted.

    To date, more than 90 people have been detained by Malaysian police for alleged ties to Isis.

    Earlier this month, 17 people were arrested for suspected involvement in the planning of terrorism activities in Kuala Lumpur.

    Khalid had said then that the April 5 arrests included two people who had just returned from Syria.

     

    Source: www.themalaysinsider.com

  • 5 Drivers Causing Singaporeans To Become Extremist

    5 Drivers Causing Singaporeans To Become Extremist

    Psychological studies of Singaporeans who support the Islamic State (IS) have revealed five drivers behind their radicalisation.

    In a presentation during the East Asia Summit, a symposium on religious rehabilitation and social reintegration, Ministry of Home Affairs psychologist Hu Weiying said the Islamic State’s exploitation of social media to recruit foreign fighters in large numbers has resonated with a handful of Singaporeans, resulting in them being radicalised by the online propaganda.

    Hu, who interviewed several radicals during her study, said there are five psychological drivers contributing to the adoption of the Islamic State’s agenda by locals.

    The first is justifying violence, such as when Islamic State fighters or sympathisers attributed the responsibility for violence to external factors and developed a binary worldview — that is, a world of good guys versus bad guys. One example of this was when the Islamic State’s violence was justified based on the actions of the Assad regime in Syria.

    The second driver is the romanticised view of the Islamic caliphate. Hu said this was driven by the view that many Muslim nations are ruled by corrupt and inefficient regimes subservient to Western powers. The desire to restore the Islamic caliphate comes from the romantic idea of reigniting the glory and influence of the Ottoman empire.

    The third driver, according to Hu, is the desire to be a ‘good Muslim’. The Islamic State, she said, offered both a transcendental-future time perspective as well as a present-hedonistic time perspective.

    In the transcendental-future time perspective, the IS focuses on life after death, giving its followers attractive notions on what happens to them after death. This redemption through jihad, according to IS, redeems not just the fighters, but also their families.

    The present-hedonistic time perspective, meanwhile, gives IS fighters a sense of excitement in the here and now. The actions of the group arouse feelings of novelty, pleasure and stimulation, while also transcending the individuality of its followers. It also romanticised the idea of the being part of the ‘real action’.

    The fourth and fifth factors are the need to escape the ‘unbearable present’ and the existential anxiety in relation to End Times prophecies. End Times prophecies, Hu said, motivates people to increase their levels of religiosity by engaging in ‘worthy causes’. The fear of missing the final opportunity, she added, drove misplaced activism.

    While most radicalised individuals driven to misplaced activism aren’t ready to go and fight for the IS in places like Syria, many resort to ‘negative activism’, such as buying jihadi-themed paraphernalia or ‘clicktivism — using social media to help promote or spread the ideology.

    In a later discussion, Indonesia’s national counter-terrorism agency (BNPT) international co-operation deputy head, Inspector General Dr Petrus Reinhard Golose said many of the same psychological factors were seen in Indonesian radicals and extremists.

    Hu said that in order to wean these people off the IS, the group’s ideology and legitimacy had to be undermined. She also said radicalised IS followers needed psychological counseling and cognitive reframing in order to change their radical worldview and to help them find alternative perspectives.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

  • Money Believed To Fund Terror Networks Flowing From Australia To Indonesia

    Money Believed To Fund Terror Networks Flowing From Australia To Indonesia

    Money thought to be funding terrorism networks has been detected flowing from Australia into Indonesia, authorities say.

    “We do have a significant amount of funds coming from Australia. We suspect it to be supporting terrorism in Indonesia,” said Indonesia’s Financial Transactions and Analysis Centre (PPATK) deputy head, Agus Santoso.

    “Not specifically ISIS (Islamic State militants), because there are many organisations,” he said.

    Mr Santoso would not say how much money was being transferred, or by whom.

    Local media has reported that the money was supporting organisations linked to IS militants, but Mr Santoso has denied that the link could be made.

    Mr Santoso said Indonesian authorities were working closely with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) to track the money.

    Meanwhile, concern is mounting in the country over the number of people leaving the country to fight with IS militants and other groups in Iraq and Syria, with experts called to a conference on how to tackle IS and terrorism.

    Singapore-based terrorism researcher from the University of Nanyang, professor Rohan Gunaratna, said there were about 18 Indonesian terrorist groups with links, or sworn allegiances, to IS.

    One of those is the offshoot of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which was responsible for the Bali bombings and led by the radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.

    Bashir, who is the spiritual leader of another terrorist organisation he founded called Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), has sworn allegiance to IS militants.

    He is currently in prison on Nusa Kambangan, the island where convicted Australian drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan are awaiting execution.

     

    Source: www.abc.net.au

  • IS Posts Video Of Little Children From Southeast Asia Undergoing Military Training

    IS Posts Video Of Little Children From Southeast Asia Undergoing Military Training

    In its latest effort to reach out to supporters in South-east Asia, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has posted photos and a video of Malay-speaking children training with weapons.

    The footage depicts a group of at least 20 boys studying, praying, eating and undergoing defence and weapons lessons in territory held by the terrorist group.

    It comes amid warnings by experts that ISIS is beefing up its external operations wing and courting further support in the region.

    “There has been a surge in Indonesian- and Malay-language material posted by ISIS online,” Mr Jasminder Singh, a research analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told The Straits Times.

    “There have been previous videos featuring Arab and Central Asian children, and it is clear they are now reaching out to target supporters in South-east Asia.”

    Titled Education In The Caliphate, the video was posted over the weekend by the Malay- language media division of ISIS, as a teaser for a longer piece to be posted later.

    Also uploaded are “exclusive” photos of students at the Abdullah Azzam academy, which uses Malay as a medium of instruction and was set up for the children of South-east Asian fighters.

    Abdullah Azzam was a radical ideologue who mentored Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

    Analysts say the school indicates that ISIS’ Malay Archipelago Unit, set up last year and called Katibah Nusantara, has grown. The decision to say the school teaches in Bahasa Melayu, rather than Bahasa Indonesia, suggests a defiance of the boundaries of the nation state.

    The video is also the first to show children from this region being trained for active combat. An estimated 500 fighters from the region, including southern Thailand, have joined ISIS.

    “They want to seek financial support, and to attract Indonesians and Malaysians to migrate to the caliphate,” said analyst Robi Sugara of research outfit Barometer Institute.

    The video comes as Turkey said last week it had detained 16 Indonesians trying to cross into Syria, and two weeks after Malaysian police identified two Malaysians in a beheading video.

    This month, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean told Parliament that returning fighters posed a danger to the region, and self-radicalised individuals may also be influenced by ISIS to carry out attacks in their home countries.

    The two-minute video features Indonesian Katibah member Bahrumsyah, who left for Syria last May. Its message is that these children will “finish all oppressors, disbelievers, apostates”, and ends with a child firing a revolver.

    Mr Abdul Halim Kader of Muslim group Taman Bacaan said there is a fear that some young people might be influenced by such videos, and educators had to do more to counter their message.

    Said Mr Singh: “The message they aim to send is, ‘These children will be the next generation of fighters. You can capture us, kill us, we will regenerate, no matter how hard you try.’ ”

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • Turkey: Spy From Anti-IS Coalition Who Helped Three British Girls Cross Into Syria Arrested

    Turkey: Spy From Anti-IS Coalition Who Helped Three British Girls Cross Into Syria Arrested

    Turkey said on Thursday it had caught a spy working for a country in the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) who had helped three British girls cross into Syria to join the militant group.

    “Do you know who turned out to be the person helping these three girls cross into Syria and join ISIS?” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told broadcaster A Haber in an interview.

    “He was caught. It turned out to be someone who works for the intelligence of a country from the coalition.”

    He did not specify which country the spy was working for but said it was not the European Union or the United States. The coalition also includes countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Australia and Canada.

    Cavusoglu said he shared this information with his British counterpart, who had replied “as usual.”

    Spy in custody

    A Turkish official who declined to be identified told Reuters the spy was now in custody.

    “The person was working for the intelligence agency of a coalition country but is not a citizen of that country. The person was not a Turkish citizen either,” he said.

    The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized large swathes of land last June, including territory close to the Turkish border. The U.S.-led coalition is using mostly air power in an attempt to push the Sunni militant group back.

    British police and the girls’ families have issued appeals for their daughters to return home after they flew to Istanbul from London on Feb. 17. Friends Amira Abase, 15, Shamima Begum, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, are thought to have since entered Syrian territory controlled by Islamic State.

    Thousands of foreigners from more than 80 nations including Britain, other parts of Europe, China and the United States have joined the ranks of Islamic State and other radical groups in Syria and Iraq, many crossing through Turkey.

    Turkey has said it needs more information from foreign intelligence agencies to intercept them, pointing to cases such as the three London schoolgirls who fled Britain.

     

    Source: http://english.alarabiya.net