AL-QAEDA-INSPIRED: Authorities keeping close watch on members extensively trained in warfare
A NEW terror network bent on regional domination has emerged from the shadows of Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and Kumpulan Mujahiddin Malaysia (KMM).
In the six months since its start, the group's members were exposed to training and motivation that could rival the Malaysian chapters of JI and KMM that were set up in the 1990s and responsible for a series of terror attacks that claimed many lives.
The federal police headquarters, which had, over the last few days, picked up several of the group's members, said police were nowhere near neutralising the threat posed by this new terror group, but added that they had the group under close surveillance for some time and were on top of the situation.
The sinister nature of the group is underscored by the fact that it doesn't operate under a formal name, at least not yet, as it had assumed three to date.
Sources involved in the hunt for members of the group and in crippling the network, said the group's reach was fast gaining traction, luring new members with the Salafi Jihadism ideology, the same one pursued by JI and KMM.
With a membership of around 50 and climbing, the authorities believe that aside from aggressive recruitment through social media, especially Facebook, the main players in the group, including women who hold critical portfolios, had been trying to penetrate local public universities.
Already, several students are on the radar of the authorities for their alleged involvement in the group.
Recruitment is carried out during religious discourses, where the group's leaders will assess and pick those with the potential and commitment to fight for their cause.
Members and tier-one personalities of the group, who sources said were active in several states, including Terengganu, Kelantan and Johor, had spread their al-Qaeda-inspired tentacles to other states.
The 10 members in police custody were picked up mostly in Selangor and Kedah.
"When you talk about a group whose struggle is based purely on ideology, it is hard. You can't kill an idea," one of the sources said.
Investigators who had been on the group's trail since November said the group was also guided by the same textbooks used by JI and KMM, including one penned by the late Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who founded al-Qaeda with Osama bin Laden.
Abdullah, who preached defensive and offensive jihad by Muslims, was killed by a car bomb blast on Nov 24, 1989.
His books discussed "the types of jihad, the conditions under which jihad becomes an obligation for all Muslims, parents' permission in allowing their sons to perform jihad, as well as fighting in the absence of an Islamic state and peace treaties with the 'enemy'".
"It is about their jihad that sanctions violence in achieving their agenda and the pursuit of martyrdom."
The sources said the group's training modules, including on warfare, were largely fashioned after those of JI and KMM.
While members of JI and KMM were sent to Ambon in Indonesia, Afghanistan and the southern Philippines for combat experience that could be used in Malaysia, members of this new group were sent to Syria.
"Training is also done locally and covers exhaustively the tradecraft associated with a terrorist, including the handling and firing of assault rifles, field stripping and re-assembly of weapons, the use of knives, bomb-making skills, sniping, map-reading, orientation and navigation, firing and manoeuvring, hit-and-run attacks, first aid, as well as the art of setting up ambush positions."
The New Straits Times traced a member of this group, who had fought in Syria. This individual is a former KMM member, who trained in Afghanistan.
It is understood that JI and KMM were never officially declared neutralised, despite hundreds of their members being rounded up. Tens more were not picked as they were deemed to be inactive members.
These two groups have now been reduced to sleeper cells.
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