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Malaysia's Future Threat: Homegrown Terrorists


Yesterday [7.2.2013], the Malaysian Police had detained under newly-enacted SECURITY OFFENCES (SPECIAL MEASURES) ACT a former ISA detainee and two others including a woman. Under this act a person can be detained for 28days without trial for the purpose of investigation. 

One of the detainee was Yazid Sufaat who had been named and implicated in the 9/11 Commission Report. He was detained under ISA in 2001 and released in 2008 after the authority satisfied that he had been rehabilitated. 



It's very interesting to know that Yazid Sufaat running a cafeteria in Jalan Duta High Court within the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex.

Police had said that the reason for their detention is related to terrorism activities. There are some other reports stated that their involvement in recruiting people especially students from public and private universities as the potential/future terrorists. It's very interesting to be noted that they had been trained locally and probably they will be send to the selected overseas countries to execute the terrorist activities. Further Police had said that they going to arrest more people including suspected handlers/trainers from West Asia. This is a very disturbing development in terms of peace and security of Malaysia.

Most recently in December 2012, a Malaysian Mohd Noor Fikrie Abd Kahar, 26, shot dead by Philippine police at a hotel after a scuffle with police who wanted to inspect a sling bag carried by his wife containing a homemade bomb. 

This reminds me of London Bombing 2005 where the homegrown terrorists recruited, brainwashed and executed the terrorist attacked. Outsiders especially from West Asia and Middle East had played an important role on the execution of these attacks.

When I observed the latest developments in Malaysia regarding with the terrorism activities, in near future there is a possibility of a terrorist attack. It can be executed by the local terrorists on the western targets in Kuala Lumpur. Where and when will be the questioned that the intelligence and enforcement agencies need to be figured out to contain such an attack happened in Malaysia.

As an independent analyst, I strongly believe that there is a possibility of such an attack which is imminent in Malaysia. This because in Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and other part of the world the terrorists is hunted down. Malaysia is considered as a safe place by the suspected terrorists all the while and this can be changed in near future because they have no places to go and launch the attacks. This is very much similar to the United Kingdom (UK) where from September 11 to July 7, the intelligence and security agencies had recognized that there is a threat and they believe that threat is coming from outside. When the relevant authorities found out that the attacks executed by their own citizens, they are stunned. Furthermore the homemade bombs done with money which the loan they had obtained from local bank earlier. The entire costs for these attacks are not more than 8,000 pounds. This is the first time in the history of internal security of UK; their own people involved themselves with such an act to kill their own.

The Malaysian and UK patterns are very much similar and therefore a terrorist attack, plan and execute by the homegrown terrorists is highly possible. Therefore the justifications said by the police on arrests of suspected terrorists are acceptable to me because the national interest and security are paramount for any intelligence and enforcement agencies.

Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.


Comments

Anonymous said…
well said
February 8, 2013 at 12:02 PM
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