Malaysian police arrest seven suspected ISIS terrorists
Malaysian police have arrested seven suspected Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, including a man who threatened to assassinate both the Malaysian King and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The arrests took place during a special operation in the states of Johor, Terengganu, Selangor and Perak between July 12 and Tuesday, federal police chief Moha-mad Fuzi Harun said in a statement yesterday.
Four of the suspects are Malaysians, while the remaining three are Indonesians.
Police arrested two Malaysians on Monday in Johor – a 42-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman.
The woman had transferred RM4,000 (S$1,348) to Muhammad Nasrullah Latif, also known as Abu Gomez, a Malaysian who joined the ISIS group in Syria. He died in March this year.
The male suspect had made threats on Facebook, saying that he would launch bomb attacks in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines after Hari Raya last month.
Prior to this, he had been in contact with Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, a Malaysian who was an ISIS member in Syria and the ringleader behind a bomb attack at a club in the KL suburb of Puchong on June 28, 2016.
Police in Skudai, Johor, on Tuesday arrested a 34-year-old unemployed Malaysian man, who is an ISIS supporter and threatened on his Facebook account to assassinate the King, Sultan Muhammad V, Tun Dr Mahathir and Religious Affairs Minister Mujahid Yusof Rawa because he felt they were not running the country according to Islamic syariah laws.
A 21-year-old Malaysian factory worker was also arrested on Tuesday in Masai, Johor. He confessed to being an ISIS supporter and had planned to join the group in Syria.
On July 12 in Terengganu, police arrested a 26-year-old Indonesian.
He is a member of Negara Islam Indonesia, or the Islamic State of Indonesia, an offshoot of the Darul Islam movement whose members took up arms against the government with the goal of creating an Islamic state. He is said to have pledged allegiance to the group’s leaders in Bandung, Indonesia, between 2015 and last year, and received weapons training in Bandung between 2015 and this year.
His wife, who is Malaysian, has also pledged allegiance to the group. The suspect had planned to take his wife and stepchildren to Syria to join ISIS.
A 27-year-old Indonesian contract worker was also arrested on July 12 in Petaling Jaya.
He confessed to being involved with ISIS, and possessed about 100 videos and 90 photos depicting ISIS activities in his mobile phone. He also promoted the group on his Facebook account by uploading videos and photos of it. He had been planning to go to Syria to join the militant group.
In Ipoh, a 42-year-old Indonesian factory worker was arrested last Saturday.
He admitted to having ties with a member of Indonesian extre-mist network Jemaah Ansharut Daulah who was involved in the murder of an Indonesian policeman on May 10 in Kelapa Dua, West Java.
Source: Straits Times
