Nine foreigners and a Malaysian arrested for alleged terrorist activity planned to blow up two places of worship because they felt the government was not doing enough to uphold Islam, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The report in the New Straits Times raises concerns that Islamic extremists may be trying to establish roots in this Muslim-majority country that has been almost entirely free of terrorist violence.
Malaysia’s success in keeping extremism at bay has been attributed to its highly efficient police intelligence force and a population that largely believes in moderate Islam even though some Malaysians have joined the Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terror group linked to al-Qaeda.
PHOTO: AFP
A police spokesman said he could not comment on the report as he was not privy to such information. Other police officials could not immediately be reached. National police chief Musa Hassan refused to talk when contacted.
Among the 10 people arrested in January was the plot leader, Aiman al-Dakkak, a Syrian university lecturer, who held weekly Islamic classes at a home near Kuala Lumpur. The newspaper said the 45-year-old al-Dakkak was seeking to recruit members for al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah.
The arrests were made public earlier this year, but the Times report reveals details of their alleged activities for the first time.
Activists say the 10 were arrested in January with about 40 others while attending al-Dakkak’s class. The Times said all nine foreigners — four Syrians including al-Dakkak, two Yemenis, two Nigerians and a Jordanian — were deported in April and were detained by their governments.
All others were freed except the Malaysian, a 39-year-old religious teacher, who is under “restricted residence,” meaning he can’t leave his district and has to report to police regularly. He was believed to have financed the group with money he earned from religious lectures, the Times said, quoting unidentified police sources.
The Times quoted its sources as saying that the 10 men targeted the places of worship in northern Penang and central Selangor states. They felt the government was not doing enough to uphold Islam in Malaysia, it said.
The report did not specify what kind of places of worship were targeted. About a third of Malaysians are ethnic Chinese and Indians, who mainly practice Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.
About 60 percent of the country’s 28 million people are Muslims.
The newspaper said most of the nine foreigners were students at universities there. They came from various backgrounds. Some of their parents are professors, doctors, ambassadors, police officers and lecturers.
They entered Malaysia using student visas and some were sponsored by their governments. Among the courses they registered for were English, Shariah Law, engineering and mass communications, the Times said.
Al-Dakkak, who entered Malaysia on a student visa in 2003, had met al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden several times, the newspaper said, citing intelligence reports.
“Aiman [al-Dakkak] wanted to set up a base here in Malaysia as the country’s geographical location was ideal, and the people here were generally friendly and unsuspecting in nature,” the Times quoted a source as saying.
Two of al-Dakkak’s students have said he did not advocate terrorism. Al-Dakkak studied in Pakistan as a teenager and worked at a Karachi university before moving to Malaysia, his student Muhamad Yunus Zainal Abidin said.
Over the past decade, Malaysian authorities have detained more than 100 militant suspects, most alleged to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah. Authorities have freed many, saying they have been rehabilitated. None was ever charged.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS