Malaysia and Indonesia are warning of a fresh terror threat from Islamist militants who have joined the al-Qaeda offshoot that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria.
The appeal of Islamic State, whose gains in Iraq and brutality towards minorities have prompted air strikes from the US, has spread to Southeast Asia, where radicalised Muslims have been inspired by the group’s declaration of an Islamic caliphate.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, followers of Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, wanted their governments toppled because the countries’ constitutions were secular and not based on sharia law, warn counter terrorism officials from both countries.
The involvement of Malaysians and Indonesians in the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts had increased the terrorist threat in Southeast Asia, according to analysts and regional police.
Malaysia has arrested at least 19 suspects for links to the terror group in the past seven months.
“During questioning, they [the suspects] admitted one of their main objectives was to attack the government,” Ayub Khan, a senior official for Malaysia’s Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division, said. “They also discussed planning attacks against a disco, pubs in Kuala Lumpur and a Carlsberg factory in Petaling Jaya.” Petaling Jaya is a suburb outside Kuala Lumpur.
Some 20 Malaysians are known to have gone to Syria to fight with Islamic State. “We believe their real numbers are more than that,” Ayub said.
At least one Malaysian, 26-year-old factory worker Ahmad Tarmimi Maliki, died as a suicide bomber in Iraq in May.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, last week banned support for Islamic State and warned its citizens not to join the group.
National police chief Ronny Sompie said the Indonesian counter-terrorism taskforce, Den88, arrested a man named Afif Abdul Majid on Saturday for allegedly declaring support for the group and for funding a terror training camp in Aceh province in 2010.
Abu Bakar Bashir, the jailed leader of the country’s al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, has expressed support for Islamic State. Jemaah Islamiyah was behind the Bali bombings in 2002 that killed 202 people, including 11 Hong Kong residents.
At least 56 Indonesians have become Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq and at least three have died. Those who return would bring back combat skills and global terrorist links, said Indonesian counter-terrorism expert Noor Huda Ismail.
“This is just like veterans from the wars in Afghanistan. Apart from Malaysia and Indonesia, there are also recruits from the Philippines going to Syria,” said Huda, who runs the only private de-radicalisation programme in Indonesia.
Islamic State recruits include experienced militants as well as recently radicalised Muslims, inspired by the group’s rapid advance in the Middle East. “Its appeal lies in its declaration of an Islamic caliphate, which is viewed by some Muslims as the realisation of a prophecy that a new Islamic order will emerge every 100 years,” Huda said.
Islamic State’s core group of fighters learned their skills against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the US when it occupied Iraq. The group has used raids and ransoms to stockpile weapons and cash.
“[Islamic State] is also far richer and better armed than al-Qaeda from taking over banks and weapons in places it has over-run. It can afford to pay each fighter who joins them US$250 every month,” said Huda.
An Australian newspaper on Monday published a photograph of a child it said was the son of an Australian convicted terrorist holding aloft the severed head of a Syrian soldier.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that the photograph was further evidence of “just how barbaric” the Islamic State group is.
The Australian newspaper reported that the photograph of terrorist Khaled Sharrouf’s son, who was raised in Sydney, was posted on Twitter by his proud father.
“That’s my boy!” Sharrouf apparently posted beneath the image that was taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of what has been declared that an Islamic Caliphate by the Islamic State, the newspaper reported.
The child, who is not named, appears to be younger than 10 years old.
Sharrouf used his brother’s passport to leave Australia last year with his wife and three sons to fight in Syria and Iraq. The Australian government had banned him from leaving the country because of the terrorism threat he posed.
He was among nine Muslim men accused in 2007 of stockpiling bomb-making materials and plotting terrorist attacks in Australia’s largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne.
He pleaded guilty to terrorism offences and was sentenced in 2009 to four years in prison.
Australian police announced last month that they had arrest warrants for Sharrouf and his companion Mohamed Elomar, another former Sydney resident, for “terrorism-related activity.”
They will be arrested if they return to Australia.
Posing with massacred bodies
The warrants followed photographs being posted on Sharrouf’s Twitter account showing Elomar smiling and holding the severed heads of two Syrian soldiers.
In June, The Australian newspaper published a photograph of Sharrouf posing among the bodies of massacred Iraqis.
Abbott, who on Monday was in the Netherlands, said he expected Australian C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster military transport planes would join multinational humanitarian efforts this week on Iraq’s Sinjar Mountain.
British officials estimated Saturday that 50,000 to 150,000 people could be trapped on the mountain, where they fled to escape the Islamic extremists, only to become stranded there with few supplies.
“Australia will gladly join the humanitarian airlifts to the people stranded on Mount Sinjar,” Abbott told ABC. “This is a potential humanitarian catastrophe.”
He said Islam State’s quest for a terrorist nation posed “extraordinary problems” for the Middle East and the wider world.
“We see more and more evidence of just how barbaric this particular entity is,” Abbott said.
KUALA LUMPUR: LESS than a decade after local militant groups were thought to have been neutralised, security agencies are warning of the emergence of four new terror organisations.
Intelligence sources told the New Straits Times that these four groups, permutations of earlier terror cells, such as Jemaah Islamiah and Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, are embarking on an aggressive recruitment drive and pushing their agenda ahead. They are believed to be operating from, among others, Perak and Selangor.
Under an understanding with intelligence sources, the NST will only refer to these organisations by their acronyms: BKAW, BAJ, DIMzia and ADI.
Their endgame is the establishment of a “super” Islamic caliphate, called Daulah Islamiah Nusantara, comprising Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, southern Thailand and southern Philippines.
This was, more than a decade ago, the ultimate goals of several regional terror groups which was forced to be shelved after many of their leaders were picked up in a global terror clampdown.
Although the four groups currently operate independently of one another, sources revealed that they subscribe to the same salafi Jihadi ideology, which mirror that of terror group al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
The cornerstone of the ideology is to fight and reject the democratic system applied by Muslim nations, including Malaysia.
Leaders and senior members of these terror groups, according to sources, had established solid links with similar groups in the region, active in places such as southern Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, as well as Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf and Isil, which has a strong presence in the Middle East.
Police are also monitoring a terror organisation based in Sabah, called Darul Islam Sabah, whose members were the last to be released from detention under the Internal Security Act.
United by a common agenda, it is believed these groups may eventually cooperate with other far-flung terror groups such as Isil, to achieve their ultimate aim.
Authorities, who have their pulse on the groups’ communications and movements, said intelligence revealed that the members of these groups, which are slowly gaining strength, had gone through training to perfect their battlefield knowledge and tradecraft, including producing their own weapons and explosives.
Experience gleaned by Malaysian militants from their Syrian and Afghan campaigns, sources believe, could also be tapped and put to use, eventually, by groups here.
They have strong local financial backers, including businessmen and professionals, as well as those whose employment status had not been ascertained.
One of the more high-profile Malaysian militants was a former drummer of a local rock outfit.
These terror groups go though great lengths to ensure that their set-up and agenda are not disrupted. In their meetings, members are constantly warned that death is the punishment for betrayal.
Authorities revealed that these groups were also behind the sending of Malaysians to be embedded in jihadist groups in Syria.
Prior to them being deployed to Syria, recruits would be sent for basic training in southern Thailand and with the Abu Sayyaf group.
The main Abu Sayyaf training camp was called Camp Hudaibiyah. It was here that recruits were taught, among others, the art of combat, urban warfare, hand-to-hand techniques, how to set up booby traps and construct improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and how to field strip weapons.
It is understood that the BKAW group, in building its strength, had been recruiting members through Facebook as well as through a series of ceramah. Their primary targets are youth and students from local institutions of higher learning.
Its members had pledged to procreate to give birth to a fresh supply of fighters.
It is understood that Ahmad Tarmimi Maliki, 26, the Malaysian linked to Isil and credited with blowing up 25 elite Iraqi soldiers at Iraq’s SWAT headquarters on May 26 in a suicide attack, was part of BKAW. He, and several others, had undergone training in Port Dickson late last year.
The NST learnt that the DIMzia, established earlier this year, was a splinter group of the BAJ. The split happened when two BAJ leaders had a falling out over the misappropriation of funds.
The sources said while the leader of DIMzia had been picked up by authorities, their members had been keeping the group active.
DIMzia had, in early April, held an orientation programme in Ijok, Perak, where members were put through rigorous physical training, which included scaling up the seventh level of a waterfall. Members were also made to soak in cold water as a test of their mental strength.
There, they were also supposed to get lessons on how to detonate a bomb using a handphone as the trigger mechanism. However, the local man who was supposed to teach them did not turn up.
It was also revealed that these groups refer heavily to “manuals” penned by militants, including Indonesian Abu Bakar Bashir, leader of Jemaah Islamiah, who in 2011 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting a training camp.
Although barely a year old, ADI, which is allegedly headed by a respectable academic figure, was believed to have strong links with foreign militant groups, including Indonesia’s Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT).
Abu Bakar had, in 2008, reportedly announced his intention to create JAT, which also meant “partisans of the oneness of God”, when the Indonesian government was preparing to execute the three convicted Bali bombers. JAT is on the United States’ terror list.
Malaysian authorities share the concerns of their counterparts in the region that locals who join their militant brethren in Syria and Iraq would then return to their country of origin to “export” their knowledge and ideology.
“We are also looking at Syria and Iraq as a petri dish for local militants to establish international contacts and propagate their goals, not only in their respective countries, but in the region as a whole.
“Those countries (Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan) are real battlegrounds, unlike the basic training they went for in the southern Philippines or in other training camps.
“When they return, their insurgency tactics and battlefield knowledge would have been highly honed.
“To their supporters here, they will be seen as high-profile jihadists and it would be easier for them to pull in more young members,” a high-ranking intelligence officer said.
Police are seeking an Islamic studies lecturer with Universiti Malaya (UM) and a staffer with the Selayang Municipal Council (MPS) among five Malaysians suspected of recruiting members for militant Islamic groups in conflict-riddled Syria and the Philippines. – See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/wanted-for-islamic-militancy-um-lecturer-selayang-council-staffer#sthash.Y8dgMsTQ.dpufProfiles of the five men, complete with their pictures, were released in a wanted poster by Bukit Aman’s counter-terrorism unit.
Inspector-general of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said three of the suspects are believed to be serving the Islamic State of Iraq and The Levant (ISIL) while the other two are members of Darul Islam Sabah, a group now affiliated with the Abu Sayyaf terrorist sect based in South Philippines.
Among those identified as ISIL recruiters is Dr Mahmud Ahmad, otherwise known as Abu Hanadzalah, a lecturer attached with Universiti Malaya’s (UM) Academy of Islamic Studies faculty.
Also linked to ISIL is Mohd Najib Husen – who also goes by the name of Abraham – the operator of a photocopy and stationaries shop in UM, and Muhammad Joraimee Awang Raimee or Abu Nur, a secretariat staff with the Selayang city council.
Linked to the Darul Islam Sabah group, meanwhile, were Mohd Amin Baco and Jeknal Adil, both from Tawau, Sabah.
Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysia Police)Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysia Police)Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysia Police)Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysia Police)Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysia Police)Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysia Police)Polis Diraja Malaysia (Royal Malaysia Police)
Rakka, Syria: A young girl was stoned to death by sunni-militant groups in Syria for operating Facebook account.
Fatoum Al-Jassem was taken to a Sharia court after she was caught using the social networking website, in Rakka, Syria. The Sharia court declared that using a Facebook account amounts to adultery and the girl should be punished by stoning, according to a news report published in Iran’s FARS news agency which quoted a report published in Arabic-language Al-Rai Al-Youm.
The members of the Al-Qaeda group in Iraq, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were behind the incident.
The ISIS, or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is an hardline Islamic group present in Iraq. They have been fighting an active war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the government forces in Iraq.
The group’s ideology is based on extremely strict interpretation of Islam.
Ironically, the Al-Nusra Front operates a Facebook account of its own.
