The Malaysian Insight

MALAYSIAN authorities thwarted at least six terror attacks on police stations, Hindu temples and entertainment outlets by Islamic State (IS) terrorists in the past two years, intelligence sources said.

Counter-terrorism sources said the attacks were stopped after they nabbed more than 40 suspected IS terrorists in operations held nationwide over that period.

Attack against police is one of the agendas pursued by IS as the enforcement body is seen as an obstacle to its plans to attack non-believers.

IS carried out its first ever successful attack on Malaysian soil in June last year when two terrorists hurled a grenade at the Movida nightclub in Puchong, Selangor, which injured eight patrons.

Two men – Imam Wahyudin, 21, and Jonius Indie, 24, – were sentenced to 25 years’ jail each. They also admitted to receiving instructions to carry out the attack from IS member Muhamad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi from Syria. Wanndy was killed in Syria in May.

“Here in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, the targets are usually police stations, places of worship and entertainment outlets.

“They are retaliating against the authorities for arresting their members. For them, the blood of policemen is ‘halal to kill’,” a source told The Malaysian Insight.

On their hit list now is Bukit Aman’s Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division principal assistant director Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay.

It was reported that IS militants have been calling on their comrades in Malaysia to eliminate Ayob, seen as the main threat against the terror group in the region.

Ayob, however, declined to comment.

The latest arrests of IS members took place in Slim River, Perak, last month when the authorities rounded up four suspects, including an Indonesian, who has been staying here since 2004.

The 34-year-old Indonesian was planning to blow up a police station in Perak, a source told The Malaysian Insight. 

“He had forged ties with militants in southern Thailand and was waiting for a consignment of explosives when the authorities moved in.”

The suspect from Pasaman Barat, Sumatra, married a local, a 53-year-old in the kampung in 2010 to remain in Malaysia, sources said.

The suspect became obsessed with IS in 2014 and set up a group on the free app, Telegram, to urge his followers to join up with the Mujahideen Indonesia Timur (MIT).

It is understood that the group created by the suspect had, at one time, 200 members from all over the world, even as far as Russia.

Telegram has become a favourite platform for IS recruiters and fighters to communicate with their followers, other than WhatsApp and Facebook.

Despite coming from different backgrounds, it did not deter the Indonesian that acted as group leader to communicate with his followers.

Malaysian intelligence discovered that the foreigners in the group used an app to translate the messages.

“In one of the messages, the suspect urged his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ to join MIT to free the town of Poso from the Christians, and to conquer North Sulawesi,” the source said.

The suspect’s main aim is to create an Islamic country through war.

Intelligence sources told The Malaysian Insight that threats by Indonesian militants should not be treated lightly as they are persistent.

This was seen in the latest attack in Indonesia where an IS member fatally stabbed a policeman. – July 6, 2017.